Restoring critical food and nutrition security data systems
22/10/2026: With a historic El Niño intensifying and global fertilizer supplies disrupted by conflict in the Middle East, the new Intentional Data Community for Food and Nutrition Security aims to help the world anticipate and prevent food and nutrition crises. The initiative responds to a 31% drop in funding for 41 priority data systems, including FEWS NET and the IPC, in 2025.
Source: The Rockefeller Foundation
Funding cuts force reduction in food rations in Gaza
19/10/2026: The World Food Programme has announced that funding shortages have forced it to reduce food assistance in Gaza. Food rations will be cut by half for over a million people, whilst half a million people will lose assistance altogether.
Source: World Food Programme
El Niño-related floods will threaten millions of people in Somalia
19/10/2026: For the past four years‚ drought has caused massive hardship in Somalia. Now the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that strengthening El Niño conditions could raise the risk of severe flooding across the country. Latest analysis projects that about two million children aged under five years may be affected by acute malnutrition between July 2026 and June 2027.
Source: African Arguments
How a handful of corporations increasingly control what we eat
30/9/2026: As the world faces its fourth wave of global food price crises in just 20 years, a new Agribusiness Atlas shows how the market has concentrated into a small number of large corporations. It warns that the more powerful the corporations, the more influence they can exert over policymaking, and the more extensively they can block regulations designed to protect people and the planet.
Source: iPES Food
Trump administration nominee chosen to lead World Food Programme
12/9/2026: Luke Lindberg, a senior US Department of Agriculture official, has been chosen to lead the World Food Programme, making him the youngest person to head the agency. The final decision to appoint Lindberg coincided with US assurances to pay more than $700 million in its regular budget dues for 2025. It remains unclear whether the two issues were linked.
Source: Devex
Only 3 percent of Gaza’s cropland remains accessible and undamaged
18/8/2026: According to a new geospatial assessment released by UN agencies, accessible and undamaged cropland in Gaza has fallen by 25% since the October 2025 ceasefire. Before hostilities escalated in October 2023, agriculture supported the livelihoods of more than 560,000 people.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization
Three consecutive years of reduction in global hunger
21/7/2026: The 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report reveals that an estimated 645 million people faced hunger in 2025, nearly 14 million fewer than in 2024. However, the report projects that around 520 million people could still face hunger in 2030, putting the world off track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization
El Niño puts agriculture on alert around the world.
22/6/2026: The World Meteorological Organization forecasts a stronger-than-usual El Niño Southern Oscillation event, due to commence within coming weeks. The risks of severe drought are sharpest in the Sahel, across Southern Africa, in South and Southeast Asia, and in Central America’s Dry Corridor and the Caribbean.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization
World Food Programme welcomes funding by US State Department
17/6/2026: The World Food Programme welcomes the announcement of an $800 million direct contribution by the US State Department. This builds on the existing US funding of pooled funds in support of emergency assistance in 21 countries.
Source: World Food Programme
Worsening hunger puts 13 countries at significant risk
17/6/2026: The latest edition of the Hunger Hotspots report, released twice a year by the UN food agencies, identifies Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen and Palestine as the world's most critical hunger hotspots, with Nigeria and Somalia joining the overall list. Armed conflict and violence remain the primary drivers of acute food insecurity, affecting 12 of the 13 hotspots.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization