Question Period Note: FOOD SECURITY

·Global food security remains a critical development challenge. While global hunger decreased for the first time since 2019, 673 million people still faced hunger in 2024.

• ·Achieving global food security is important for Canada. We remain concerned that domestic food prices in many developing countries - the prices that matter to poor consumers - continue to increase and drive greater hunger and malnutrition.
• Domestically, the rising cost of food for Canadians is closely tied to our dependence on tropical foods grown by smallholder farmers in developing countries, where poverty and hunger persist.
• Responding to the global food crisis is both an important domestic and international priority for Canada. Canada will continue to address the root causes of hunger and malnutrition by strengthening the resilience of agri-food systems to climate, agronomic and economic shocks
• In 2024-25, Canada provided $600 million for long-term agri-food systems development and over $1 billion to malnutrition.
• The provision of emergency food and nutrition assistance is a key component of Canada's international humanitarian assistance portfolio, with over $380 million provided through United Nations and civil society partners in 2025.

The major drivers of global hunger and malnutrition are conflict and insecurity, climate change, and economic shocks.
In 2024, it is estimated that 673 million people were undernourished, 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure, and 2.6 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet. The world is not on track to meet any of the seven global nutrition targets.
Progress in reducing hunger is largely driven by improvements in Southern Asia and South America. Hunger continues to rise in most subregions of Africa and Western Asia.
Since 2020, global food price inflation has consistently outpaced headline inflation, underscoring persistent pressures in agriculture and food markets.
A 10% increase in food prices is associated with a 3.5% rise in food insecurity, and a 2.7% to 4.3% increase in child wasting.
Canada is committed to strengthening the resilience of agri-food systems with emphasis on climate-smart agriculture, sustainable agri-food value chains, food system governance and productive safety-nets.
Canada also addresses the immediate impacts of hunger through emergency food assistance and nutrition.
In 2025, at least 319 million people are estimated to face emergency levels of hunger, including 1.9 million on the brink of famine (Sudan and Gaza), with 70% of acutely food insecure people living in fragile or conflict-affected contexts.
Canada's humanitarian assistance is allocated according to assessed needs as identified appeals. As of May 2025, Canada has allocated $382 million in emergency food and nutrition assistance to key partners such as the World Food Programme, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, among others.
In 2025, Canada has allocated a majority of its food and nutrition assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa (35%), where the largest responses include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Sudan; and to the Middle East and Eastern Europe (35%), where the largest allocations went to Gaza, Syria, West Bank, and Yemen.

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