Key Findings
Food security trends down
The 11th edition of the GFSI highlights that the global food environment has been deteriorating, making it vulnerable to shocks. The world made big gains in food security from 2012 to 2015, with overall GFSI scores jumping six percent. However, structural issues in the global food system led growth to slow subsequently, and for the past three years the trend in the overall food security environment has reversed.
Affordability plummets
In 2022 the GFSI was dragged down by falls in two of its strongest pillars—affordability, and food quality and safety—and saw continued weakness in its other two pillars—availability, and sustainability and adaptation. In particular, Affordability, the top-scoring pillar, was dragged down by sharp rises in food costs, declining trade freedom and decreased funding for food safety nets.
The food security gap is widening
Eight of the top ten performers in 2022 come from high-income Europe, led by Finland (with a score of 83.7), Ireland (scoring 81.7) and Norway (scoring 80.5). These nations score strongly on all four pillars of the GFSI. Japan (scoring 79.5) and Canada (scoring 79.1) round out the remainder of the top ten. The difference between the top performer and the country at the bottom of the ranking has continued widening since 2019, reflecting the inequity in the global food system.
Innovation is essential to building resilience
Nations where farmers had access to agricultural inputs and financial products, where governments invested in R&D and innovative technology and had a strong supply chain infrastructure, were more likely to have higher global food security scores. Indeed, access to these agricultural inputs were some of the biggest gainers in the index since 2019, especially commitments to empowering female farmers (jumping 18.4%) and access to agricultural technology, education and resources (up by 10.1%).
