According to the recently published State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 (SOFI), in 2019 nearly 690 million people were chronically food insecure. Preliminary projections suggest that the COVID‐19 pandemic may further add between 83 and 132 million people to the total number of chronically undernourished in the world in 2020, depending on the economic growth scenario.
COVID‐19 places an additional burden on fragile political and social systems, compounding existing risks, including conflict, economic crises, natural disasters, climate extremes/variability, animal and plant diseases and pests serving as additional stresses on agri‐food systems and exacerbating acute food insecurity.