The Global State Of Food Security

Last spring, the pandemic resulted in supermarket shelves being emptied all over the world to the detriment of more vulnerable members of society. This occurred in many countries with stable supply chains and high levels of food security. Rather than actual food shortages, the problems were mostly attributed to demand exceeding supply. Even though the chaos of last spring has largely subsided as countries dealt with multiple waves of Covid-19, food security remains a major problem across the world according to a new report.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2020 Global Food Security Index measures the affordability, availability, safety, natural resources/resilience and quality of food across 59 unique indicators in 113 countries. It found that food security is still deteriorating around the world due to climate change and intensive farming with the pandemic exacerbating those problems. The index named Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands as the countries with the highest levels of food security while Zambia, Sudan and Yemen had the lowest.