Máximo Torero Cullen (FAO) on the high cost of a healthy diet and the upcoming State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report 2026 - Press Conference

All right, good afternoon. We're delighted to be joined in person this time by our friend Massimo Torreo, who's the Chief Economist at the FAO, who's here to present the latest report. So please, Massimo, you have the floor and then we'll take some questions.

No, thank you, thank you very much and good morning to everybody. So the SOFI report has 2 parts. The first one is the assessment of the numbers of how we are doing in terms of hunger and food security and nutrition. And the second part is a thematic part that contributes to improvement of what is happening in terms of the situation. So today, or yesterday, we launched here in the UN headquarters the State of Food Security and Nutrition of the World 2026, which focuses on a fundamental question, which is, why are healthy diets still too expensive for billions of people? To answer that question, we first need to distinguish 3 concepts that are often confused. Cost, affordability, and consumption. The focus of this office is cost. Affordability is linked to income and income distribution, and consumption, of course, depends on behavioral change. So I could have the money to buy a healthy diet, but if I don't like it, I won't do it. But this report focuses on the cost. So the report shows that the global cost of a healthy diet has increased 25% in just 5 years. reaching $4.28 purchase power parity dollars per person per day. As a result, 2.69 billion people, almost 1 in every 3 people in the world, still cannot afford a healthy diet. Just to give you a reference, the extreme poverty line is $3 PPP per capita per day. So the cost of a healthy diet is above the cost of the level of extreme poverty. One of the report's most important findings is that calories are relatively inexpensive, but nutrition is not. Staple foods provide about half of the calories we need, yet represent only 13% of the cost of a healthy diet. In contrast, fruits and vegetables provide only 5% of the calories, but account for 16% of the cost, so significantly more expensive than cereals, while animal-sourced foods account for almost 30% of the cost. The challenge, therefore, is not to produce enough calories; it is making nutrient-rich foods more affordable, And that's what will reduce the cost of this healthy diet. The report also shows that there is no one size that fits all as a solution. When countries build healthy diets using foods that are locally available and culturally appropriate, costs fall substantially. On average, using local foods reduces the cost of a healthy diet by 34% globally and by almost 80% in Africa compared with a standardized global food basket. This highlights the importance of investing in local production, local value chains and indigenous foods. We also found that where people live matters. In many countries, fruits and vegetables cost more than twice as much in remote areas, rural areas, than in major cities because of the poor roads, the weak logistics, and high post-harvest losses. Perhaps the most important finding that we found is that between 70% and 75% of the cost of a healthy diet is generated after food leaves the farm. So it's not in the farm, it's after it leaves the farm. And the biggest bottlenecks are no longer only on the farm, they are in storage, in transport, processing, cost chains, and wholesale markets. This challenges how we should think about investment. So our analysis shows that investment in rural roads, cold storage, logistics, and efficient value chains for fruits and vegetables generate much larger reduction in the cost of healthy diets than broad, untargeted investments. The report also challenges the conventional policy thinking. Our simulations show that subsidizing staple foods alone can actually increase the relative cost of a healthy diet, so increase rather than reduce. And that's why we are looking for an agenda of repurposing of the support to cereals to move them to more nutrient-dense foods, which will have a bigger return. And this implies that we need to focus on 2 major areas. One is what we call the hardware, and the other one is what we call the software. So the hardware is about the infrastructure that we require to reduce the cost of transportation and logistics, and the software is about the policies. So lowering the cost of healthy diets is one of the most effective ways to improve nutrition and reduce hunger and obesity, which is increasing in the world, and that you will see in the launch of the report on Tuesday, 21st of July in Rome, and we will be open to all of you because what we are seeing is obesity is increasing and we also know through our studies of hidden costs of the agri-food systems, that implies from a total of around $11 trillion of hidden costs, $8 trillion are related to health, which means NCDs, non-communicable diseases, which are linked to the lack of access to a healthy diet. So what we need to do is to focus on 3 priorities: reduce structural costs across the value chain, particularly after the farm gate; repurpose policies and investments towards nutrient-dense foods rather than reinforcing incentives that favor calories over nutrition, and strengthen evidence-based policymaking through better local data, closer coordination across agriculture, health, trade, and social protection. The cost of a healthy diet is not simply another statistic. It is a very important diagnostic that we need to resolve if we want to minimize this enormous amount of hidden costs and enormous amounts of fatalities that come as a result of overweight and obesity. So I thank you. I'm happy to to answer any questions. Thank you.

Pam?

Thank you very much, Dr. Torrero. It's Pamela Falk from U.S. News and World Report, and on behalf of the UN Correspondents Association, thank you for the briefing. My question is about— you haven't dealt with this in the past, and I understand it may be an overlap with WHO, but there's big alerts about this It's cyclo— I'm not that kind of a doctor, but cyclospora that's infecting so much of the fruits and vegetables, green lettuce in the United States and around the world apparently, and it's really taking off. How much will something like that affect the food security situation? Well, I think that's a very good question. story, and would it be an addendum to your report that's not published yet? Is that correct?

Sure.

Thank you.

You were muted. Go ahead. No, no, look, the report looks at all these different issues that affect the supply of high-value commodities. High-value commodities are fruits and vegetables, and those are the ones that are affected by what you are referring to. So I think in any case of a pest or a disease, our job is to try to minimize that risk. And the issue here is how we can find a solution to those risks locally, but also to avoid it transferred to other locations, like the one of the fruit, which was the mosca della frutta, the fly of the fruit, which basically transboundary movement of that will create a problem to other fruits being exported by other countries. So the same applies here. What we have done, and not directly in this report, is we have started to simulate the global impacts of any potential pest and disease that is affecting any commodity, not only relative to high-value commodities but also to cereals. For example, soybean rust is already affecting the US. It will reduce yields between 30% to 40%. That has a huge economic impact in the world in terms of productivity. And soybean is a GMO, so if there is something affecting the GMO, it immediately replicates to all of them because they are identical. No. So we need to start looking at all those potential risks as the one you're saying and how they could be spread out. There is also problems with meat right now. Uh, moose and fowl disease is expanding in other countries. So I think all these issues are extremely important and these are issues that are starting to evolve as we move in the increasing frequency of climate events. We know climate will affect the evolution of all these pests and diseases.

Uh, just a follow-up, which is, is it worse now than it was?

What we are expecting is that because of the increasing frequency and intensity of climate, we will have mutation of certain pests and diseases that we already have solutions. So that will create a new area that could complicate the way we produce, no? And that's worse now because we have traspassed 7 of the 9 planetary boundaries. So for sure, we know the intensity and frequency of climate. You just go out the street and you will see the weather here will create those those changes, and that's the changes that we need to be ready. Because in some cases, if we are not ready, for example, for the soybean rust, or we are not ready for this disease or other diseases, and we cannot replicate the solutions— so the GMO crops in the case of GMO, but in the case of maize or wheat, that we can use the gene bank from CIMMYT to find the variety that is resistant to it— we won't be able to do it quickly. And that means the longer we take, the worse it will be in terms of prices, and of course, in the case of high-value commodities, it will affect the cost of agriculture.

Thank you.

Namo?

Thank you so much for this briefing. This is Namo Abdullah with Rudaw. I have 2 questions. I think you said subsidizing food will make it more unaffordable for people to buy healthy food?

No, what I said is continue to subsidize starchy foods, so cereals, in some cases it makes it even more unaffordable because of the inefficiency in the use of those resources.

Not all kinds of food, just like certain types of food?

No, I was referring to cereals.

Okay.

Because what we are proposing is to shift from subsidies in cereals towards high-value commodities, because to have a lower cost of healthy diets, we need to reduce the cost, as I mentioned, in the structure of the basket of costs, the bigger costs on fruits and vegetables and on animal products. So we need to reduce those.

Okay. So my question is, what solutions do you or your data supports? For example, here in New York City, the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has proposed the idea of city-owned supermarkets as a way of subsidizing food for people. Is that an idea that your data backs? And my second question is, where is it— where is the worst? Where's— which country in the world is now facing the gravest unaffordability crisis? when it comes to healthy diet, healthy food? Thank you.

On the second topic, the region— I cannot tell you the specific country, but the region which is doing the worst in terms of the cost of a healthy diet is interestingly Latin America and the Caribbean, especially the Caribbean, but the whole continent is doing the worst. It has the highest cost of a healthy diet in the world. Now, the contradiction is this is a continent that exports a lot of food. It's a key exporter not only of cereals, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, but also high-value commodities, Peru, Chile, Mexico. But that's the situation, and it could be related to the fact that production is not being sequenced properly. So they are putting a lot of emphasis on exporting more, but not on creating enough supply so that they can lower also their local prices. And the second component that could be the reason behind this is the fact that they are not using other varieties of foods. which could reduce the cost and which are more localized, as I mentioned before. So that's a surprise, but that's the most expensive healthy diet in the world. Now, your first question was about solutions and what solutions we have been looking at. In the case of New York, you are saying of this supermarket. Look, as long as the supermarket that you are designing that will have a subsidy is targeted to the people that really need, that's a good way to go because basically you are making these people that cannot afford, like are at the tail of the distribution, you are targeting them properly so that they can have better access to these types of foods because you want to reduce NCDs from them. You want them not to be overweight and obese because that will create a health cost for the state and a health cost for the local government. But in terms of the globe, I think that there are many spaces where we can keep improving. One of those is food loss and waste. Food loss goes from the producer to the wholesale market included. Waste is from retail to consumers. Now, what we know in waste is that the major waste happens now at the level of the household. It is not in the restaurants, it is not in the retail. There are exceptions like hospitals, for example, and New York has a very nice program on reduction of waste in hospitals. But again, we need to change behavior of people, and that's extremely important to do that. In the case of losses, the total of both of them— so losses today are 13.33 Waste is 19%, so more or less one-third, a little bit more than that. In the case of losses, it's more complicated, and that is linked also. If you look at losses, high-value commodities are more or less like fruits and vegetables in 30%. So we need to find ways to improve coal value chains. We need to improve connectivity. That's the hardware that we need to change, especially to connect high-value commodities to markets so that we can minimize the cost. So interventions on that type of hardware. Very localized and targeted will help enormously to reduce those costs.

Thank you very much. Islam.

Thank you very much. Islam Doru from Anadolu Agency. I missed the first few minutes of your talk and I'm sorry if you mentioned about it, but I would like to ask about the recent escalation again in the Middle East, in the Strait of Hormuz, how this is going to affect the food affordability Around the globe and how it has been affected so far, and what's your prediction in coming months, even years, in that?

Thank you. I can take an hour talking about the Strait of Hormuz, but he won't like it. But look, the report that will be launched on Monday, what it does to bring the impacts of the Strait of Hormuz, because remember, the numbers that we report in this report are 2025. So it's before the Strait of Hormuz, but we also do projections to 2030. So that report incorporates those elements into the projection. But now to answer your question, the Strait of Hormuz, what it is, it removes one-third and one-quarter of the key inputs for the agri-food systems. That means natural gas, sulfur for sulfuric acid to produce phosphate, fertilizers, nitrogen fertilizers and other types of fertilizers. And energy, which we use across the agri-food system. So if you reduce, you create that supply shock that you are reducing one-third and one-quarter of the inputs. What will happen? Prices of those inputs will go up. Now, if farmers are facing low commodity prices, especially on cereals, which is the challenge because cereals are nitrogen intensive, then their margins are getting close to zero or negative. So the farmer has to make a choice, and my choice is I lose money and I keep producing the same with the same inputs at a higher cost and a low price of the commodity, or I produce with less inputs, which has a consequence on yields, or I decided to switch to commodities which can control and fix more nitrogen, like moving from cereals to soybeans, or basically don't produce. So the problem with the agri-food system is that the impacts are not immediate. It takes time. One thing is the commodity price, which depends on what was the previous harvest. The other thing is the food that you buy in the market. So wheat is a commodity, bread is a food commodity that you buy in the market, a food element. So that transmission takes between 3 to 6 months. So you will start seeing in your supermarkets or where you buy in the retail stores, and you're already seeing, a burger costs $30 here, so you will see clearly how the the price of the final products will start to increase, but it will take a few months more. It's very different to energy that immediately goes to your pump. That's why people react more to energy, because it's easy to see. Now, this— the closure of the Strait of Hormuz created this spike in prices. Then you have the MOU that was signed, and some vessels start to move out. But today we see that even the oil price is starting to move up again. So we are already in $82, $83. With a trend to go up because they are still in, in a conflict and vessels won't go when there is a conflict. The major risk right now that we have in terms of commodities is the lack of sulfur. It's enormous right now. It's affecting all phosphates. Urea fall because lower demand, which is a bad signal because it's telling us that farmers took the choice of buying less inputs that will affect yields for tomorrow. And also VAP continues to be high and natural gas continues to be high despite even the MOU. And that is because now Europe, for example, is in 45% of the capacity of the reserves, which means that they will have to buy back. That's the trigger for them to buy back and they will put more pressure. And you have a lot of damage happening in Russia Federation because of the Ukraine war. So they are also affected in terms of their infrastructure to deliver. All that tells us That the situation will continue to be complex, inputs will continue to be high costs, farmers will continue to face enormous challenges, and the possibility that where we are lucky today that we had enough good good harvests in the past, that's why the commodity prices are still not so high with exception of rice and durum wheat. That means that in the future that could change, and to that if you add the fact of El Niño. That will exacerbate the situation. If it falls in a key exporting country where you are using less inputs and you have less water, that will have even a deeper impact. So the situation doesn't look good. What will happen in the next months will depend on how much vessels start to move and how deep the problem will be. But people don't perceive that because still they don't see in the supermarkets what they will see in a few months. And that's where we need to, to be, to get ready for this The commodities that are in big trouble, as I say, is rice and durum wheat. So bypass that because you will have a problem.

Thank you.

Eric.

Hi, it's Eric Peters with Kyoto. My colleague asked part of my question, but do you have the counterfactual for if supposing there was no conflict around the Strait of Hormuz and then for 2027 if the situation continues, Would it be possible to prognosticate, and if you have any numbers? Thank you.

Yeah, no, look, the counterfactual in this case is not so complicated because basically it's a supply shock. No, it's different to COVID-19, it's different to the war in Ukraine, because in the time of the war in Ukraine, the commodity prices were high, so farmers could absorb the shock of prices. So basically, the counterfactual will be to assume the prices before the crisis, and that means that we move to the steady-state situation before the crisis of the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. So the impact will be there, and the only solution to a supply shock of this type is that you reduce consumption. You have to reduce demand because there is no new supply to be generated because it takes three to four years to build these type of facilities, in difference to us having a supply response for wheat or for other type of commodity. In the case of inputs like this, it's not easy to get a supply response. So it's just a supply shock. The contrafactual is before the conflict. Now. What will happen in 2027 will depend a lot on the combination of El Niño and how much the deepness of the closure continues. That's what will affect. We have simulated, as I said before, until 2030. But to be clear with the numbers, if you look at our website, there is a paper that we produce and we simulate the impacts. We are talking of a fall in welfare of 1.7% in the world and across to 2.7% reduction in economic growth, which is very similar to what the IMF was already projecting. because of these type of problems, which are driven not only by the cost of fuel but also by the cost of these inputs.

Thank you very much. I don't see any questions online. Massimo, thank you for that interesting and somewhat depressing report, but it's always great to have you and we're delighted to have you in person for once, so thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I'll start the briefing in just a few minutes.