Food Access

Asia faces unprecedented food security challenges due to soaring rice prices, climate-induced disasters, and ecosystem degradation. Strategic action is needed to transform food systems for greater resilience and sustainability.

Food security remains a serious challenge in Asia and the Pacific. This region has the highest number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide. 

The stability of rice, a food staple for nearly 690 million Southeast Asians, faces considerable challenges amid recent international conflicts, evolving trade policies, and climate change. Factors including an intensified El Niño, the conflict in Ukraine, as well as growing trade restrictions across Asia have collectively led to a deficit in the global supply of rice, constricting the availability of rice and posing significant threats to public health within Southeast Asia.

Asia is home to 55% of the people in the world affected by hunger—more than 400 million—and faces continuing threats to food security. The crises of recent years—including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and climate-related shocks—have disrupted Asia’s food supply chains as they have around the world. Currently, rising temperatures, unpredictable weather patterns, and floods pose threats to the production of rice and wheat, key staple crops in the region.