President, Excellencies, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to join you at this ECOSOC special meeting to discuss one of the most decisive development priorities of our time: transforming agrifood systems to accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals.

Let me be clear: agrifood system transformation is not merely a sectoral agenda. It is an economic agenda, a social agenda, and a stability agenda. Done successfully, it can be one of the most powerful levers for broad-based, inclusive, job-rich growth-fueling food security, reducing poverty, strengthening resilience, assuring peace, and generating opportunities at scale. This is how we can achieve good food for all for today and tomorrow-today ensuring the universal right to food, and tomorrow ensuring that actions taken now are sustainable so that future generations can also realize that right. Good food also means greater access to and consumption of healthy diets.

Yet today, the global picture is deeply worrying.

According to the 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, some 673 million people were undernourished in 2024, equivalent to 8.2 % of the global population-a slight improvement but still far above pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, about 2.3 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, and around 2.6 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2024.

The cost of a healthy diet now averages USD 4.46 (PPP) per person per day, placing nutritious foods out of reach for many.

At the same time, agrifood systems are being hit by a convergence of systemic shocks: increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, economic slowdowns, volatile food prices, rising input costs and geopolitical instability. These are not isolated disruptions-they are systemic risks with real human consequences.

This convergence is visible in acute food insecurity. Recent global analyses show that in 2024 almost 300 million people across more than 50 countries faced crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity, driven by conflict, climate devastation and economic stress. These are not one-off emergencies but signs of a dangerous normalization of chronic crisis conditions.

But crises are not the only issue. Structural inequalities remain deeply embedded in agrifood systems.

Women continue to face persistent barriers in access to land, finance, services and decent work opportunities. Today, approximately 36 % of all working women globally are engaged in agrifood systems, yet their contributions are often undervalued and they face gender-based gaps in productivity, wages and access to productive assets. Closing these gender gaps could increase global GDP by nearly USD 1 trillion and reduce food insecurity by tens of millions of people.

Youth are increasingly disengaging-not because agriculture lacks potential, but because too often it lacks profitability, dignity and prospects. The share of working youth reliant on agrifood systems has declined from 54 % in 2005 to around 44 % in 2021, and youth food insecurity has risen sharply in recent years.

And yet, we know that transforming agrifood systems could become one of the greatest job engines of the coming decades. Agrifood systems already provide livelihoods for billions, and remain central to employment in many low- and middle-income countries. But the quality of those jobs, the distribution of benefits, and the ability of the poorest to participate remain deeply unequal.

This brings us to one of the most binding constraints: finance.

Despite global agri-investment reaching record levels, agrifood systems remain systematically underfunded where needs are greatest. Many developing countries face limited fiscal space, high debt burdens and increasing borrowing costs. Their capacity to invest in resilience, productivity, value addition and nutrition is constrained precisely when investments must scale up dramatically.

And international support is weakening. Official Development Assistance declined in 2024, with further projected decreases in 2025, limiting the funds available for food systems and nutrition initiatives.

To transform agrifood systems at the scale necessary, experts estimate that approximately USD 680 billion per year will be needed through 2030 in low and middle income countries to build more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems-covering infrastructure, social protection, resilient production and nutritious diets ($ 425 billion in investments and $255 billion in social safety nets).

This is not a marginal gap. It is a development emergency.

So what must we do?

First, we must shift from fragmented interventions to coherent transformation pathways-aligning agricultural, food, trade, climate, social protection and employment policies around shared objectives: productivity, resilience, sustainability and nutrition. Agrifood systems intersect with health, energy, jobs and education; transformation must reflect that reality.

Second, we must repurpose agricultural policies and incentives. Too many public resources still support distortive approaches that fail to improve nutrition, reduce emissions or build resilience. Redirecting incentives toward sustainable practices, diversified production and healthier food environments can deliver triple wins: better livelihoods, better diets, and better environmental outcomes. This means embedding resilience in systems through early warning, anticipatory action and robust social protection.

Third, we must scale up investments that create jobs and unlock entrepreneurship. This includes investments in rural infrastructure, irrigation, storage, cold chains, transport corridors and food processing capacity-especially in secondary cities and rural growth poles where value chains can thrive. We must make agrifood sectors attractive to private investment by de-risking finance strategically (through technical and financial de-risking) and prioritizing public interventions that ensure financial flows reach small-scale producers, rural SMEs, women entrepreneurs and youth innovators-not only large actors.

Fourth, innovation must become a driver of equity, not exclusion. Digital tools, AI-enabled analytics, early warning systems, precision agriculture and digital extension services can significantly raise productivity and reduce risk. But technology alone is not the solution. Technology must be paired with investments in connectivity, digital literacy, governance and fair access. Without this, innovation will deepen inequalities rather than close them.

FAO has consistently emphasized that digital transformation is not just about tools-it is about building enabling ecosystems where data, skills, infrastructure and institutions work together to accelerate impact.

Finally, we must place special emphasis on the most vulnerable countries-Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, Small Island Developing States, fragile states and net food-importing developing countries. These countries face the harshest constraints-limited fiscal space, high exposure to climate shocks, heavy import dependence and persistent food insecurity. For them, transformation is not optional-it is a matter of assuring their food security and stability.

Excellencies,

The objective of this meeting is therefore timely and essential: to catalyze coordinated action in support of agrifood system transformations-building on commitments from key global milestones, including the HLPF 2025, the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake +4, the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, CFS 53, the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, and the Second World Summit for Social Development.

Let me conclude with a simple message:

The world cannot afford to treat hunger, malnutrition and rural poverty as inevitable. Agrifood systems can become engines of prosperity, resilience and peace. Investing in agrifood systems transformation will not only ensure good food for all for today and tomorrow-but it will also decrease conflict risk and strengthen peace. Food security is also a security issue, and investments in food systems are investments in stability and shared prosperity.

Transforming agrifood systems is not only about producing more food. It is about producing better food, ensuring better jobs, building stronger and more resilient economies, and delivering better futures.

The time to act is now.

Thank you.