Welcome to the third blog post in our series on sustainable development and food security. In this series, we delve into the intricate relationship between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the pressing issue of food security. 

In Rotterdam, but also in other Dutch cities, food supply in public spaces has increased sharply in the past 15 years and the share of (unhealthy) fast food has grown strongly. Since 2004, the fast food share in Rotterdam has grown by 46%¹. This increase is greatest in neighborhoods with a low socio-economic score. While tax and VAT regulations are part of a wider national campaign for healthy food, excluding new fast food and snack restaurants in certain areas is legally more complex and requires coordinated and targeted actions by individual municipalities.  

Good Food Oxfordshire (GFO) is leading Oxfordshire’s role as a Living Lab within the FEAST project.  We are working with our network of over 200 local food organisations – community groups, food and farming businesses, institutions and local councils - to address the challenges of access and affordability to healthy and sustainable food.

In the previous blog we highlighted some of the key policy mechanisms that have been used to address food insecurity for key food system actors:
Agricultural producers > Price Incentives, Fiscal Support
Food environment > General Services Support, Other support
Consumers > Fiscal Support

In the second blog in this series, we outlined the state of food insecurity across the world.  A key takeaway was that in 2021, 2.3 billion people globally were moderately or severely food insecure.  As highlighted in the last blog: “The increase in food prices and stagnant wages made food unaffordable for large proportions of the global population – in 2022 this has been made even worse because of the war in Ukraine and the inflation and cost of living crisis.”  

In our first blog in this series, we outlined some of the key terms linked to food security.  In this blog, we will give an overview of some of the key findings of the FAO report - The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 - focusing on food insecurity trends across the world between 2014-2021.

Europeans are facing unprecedented challenges because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, the increased cost of living, geopolitical tensions (particularly the war in Ukraine) and environmental pressures (severe heat, drought, wildfires, floods, etc.).  These challenges have knock-on effects on the availability and affordability of food for most Europeans, including healthier and more sustainable options.

In this first series of blog posts, we will focus on a recent report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) entitled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. The report outlines the current levels of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition globally and outlines the barriers and facilitators that could be used to make progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger.  It is a long and important report with a lot of rich information that gives much food for thought!