In 2025, the world’s food systems sit at a decisive crossroads. A cascade of major reports offers one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of how global food security and climate resilience are evolving, and not in the direction we would hope. With COP30 finalised, these insights carry a particular weight. They show that only systemic, transformative and evidence– and country-based action can safeguard nutrition, livelihoods, and ecosystems in a rapidly warming world. Among the most effective solutions highlighted across the evidence base are agroecology, including agroforestry systems, which have demonstrated strong potential to restore biodiversity, strengthening resilience and livelihoods, reducing emissions, and supporting decent rural incomes.
Economic pressures
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 (SOFI) report reveals how persistent food inflation continues to diminish the affordability of healthy diets, lower-income countries (LICs) and regions being the ones that face the sharpest consequences as the price of nutrient-rich foods, particularly vegetables, fruit and animal products, rises faster than basic starchy staples. According to the report, it is estimated that between 8 and 8.8 per cent of the global population faced hunger in 2024. However, SOFI also identified countries that have managed to soften these effects through strengthening social protection systems, improving market transparency, and investing in resilient agrifood systems.
The OECD–FAO Agricultural Outlook 2025–2034 confirms the scale of the challenge. Global demand for food is projected to grow 13 per cent over the next decade, driven largely by expanding and increasingly affluent populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Diets are diversifying, yet inequities persist: while middle-income countries will see higher per-capita consumption of nutrient-rich foods, low-income regions will remain far below healthy diet thresholds. Without bold interventions, nutritional inequality will widen, undermining SDGs and climate goals alike.
Similarly, leaders from the world’s major economies, except the United States, convened at the G20 summit and quickly reached consensus on a declaration that elevated the Global South’s most urgent concerns. A central focus was food price volatility, a critical threat for LMICs where households spend a larger share of their income on food and small price increases can push millions into hunger. G20 leaders were committed to building comprehensive partnerships and advancing global governance reforms to modernize international institutions.
Land, water, and ecosystem pressures
The 2025 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report highlights a largely overlooked crisis: cropland degradation. Declining soil health is widening yield gaps, reducing productivity, and heightening vulnerability to climate shocks. 2025 State of the World’s Land and Water Resources (SOLAW) echoes these concerns. Water scarcity, soil depletion, and growing competition over land are worsening as agriculture, cities, and industry compete for limited resources. Yet there are signs of progress as reported in the 2025 Global Forest Resources Assessment: there has been a steady decline in global deforestation over the past three decades, strengthening the case for restoration strategies such as agroforestry, which enhances production, biodiversity, and carbon storage. Taken together, these findings reinforce the urgency of accelerating efforts under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and set a strong foundation for next year’s International Year of Pastoralism and Rangelands, where sustainable land stewardship will take center stage.
Climate extremes, disasters, and the need for resilience
Heatwaves, floods, cyclones, and prolonged droughts are more frequent than ever. FAO and World Meteorological Organisation’s report on Extreme Heat Impact on Agriculture shows the accelerating risks to crops, livestock, fisheries, and forests. Meanwhile, The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security estimates that disasters have inflicted $3.26 trillion in agricultural losses worldwide over the past 33 years. The report “recognises the significant advances in digital technologies that are transforming agrifood systems” but access remains challenging. The digital divide leaves 2.6 billion people offline, creating structural constraints that limit countries’ capacity to deploy digital tools for effective risk management.
FAO and the United Nations Development Programme ’s joint analysis of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) shows mid progress. As of 15 June 2025, 64 developing countries have submitted a NAP, and 95 per cent of them acknowledge climate-related impacts on agrifood systems. However, significant constraints continue to limit effective implementation. These include persistent gaps in the use of evidence-based tools to assess climate risks in agrifood systems, technical barriers and financial constraints
Agroecology and agroforestry
Across the 2025 evidence base, one conclusion stands out with increasing clarity: climate change, biodiversity loss, and widening inequalities demand a shift toward agroecology and agroforestry. While this insight is not new, it reflects a growing recognition that agroecology offers a transformative approach to addressing interlinked climatic, food and ecosystemic crises. Agroecology strengthens resilience by diversifying production, improving soils, and reducing reliance on costly inputs, while also delivering broader socio-economic benefits. “It applies ecological principles to farming while centring justice, diversity and care. In many ways, agroecology represents degrowth in action, from the ground up”, as noted by Aziliz Le Rouzo, Research Associate at SEI Headquarters and Kushal Poudel, Agroecologist, Co-founder and Director at Avni Center for Sustainability. Agroforestry enhances agricultural productivity, resilience, and sustainability by restoring degraded land, regulating microclimates, and storing carbon. As highlighted in the report “Climate and Ecosystem Service Benefits of Forests and Trees for Agriculture,” protecting and restoring tree-based systems is not only an environmental necessity but vital for agricultural adaptation. In the same line, the policy brief “Agroforestry and Agroecology” further illustrates how these approaches can support safe agricultural production and gives insights on challenges in access to bioinputs.
The SIANI Amplification Stories of Agroecology Practices and Principles cases illustrate how the HLPE 13 Principles of Agroecology principles work in practice, showing that when farmers integrate trees, diversify production, and strengthen local governance, landscapes become more productive and resilient. In regions facing land degradation as highlighted in SOFA and SOLAW agroforestry offers a regenerative pathway to restore fertility, biodiversity, and long-term productivity.
Beyond environmental gains, these approaches strengthen food and nutrition security. Agroecological and tree-based systems typically increase availability and diversity of nutrient-rich foods—fruits, vegetables, legumes—helping counter the alarming rise in ultra-processed food (UPFs) consumption documented in the Lancet’s 2025 series on UPFs.
Food security and social protection
The Global Report on Food Crises 2025 reports that 295 million people facing acute hunger due to conflict, displacement, economic and climate shocks, including 37.7 million children with acute malnutrition. On the role of school meal programmes, the State of School Feeding Worldwide identifies malnutrition, temporary or permanent income loss, reduced school attendance, rising food prices and risks of displacement as factors that “can, in each case, be mitigated by food supply policies or exacerbated by changes to food supply chains.” The report also shows how countries are increasingly sourcing food from smallholder farmers, primarly organic, regenerative and agroecological production, into procurement models. The research from the Rockefeller Foundation suggests that regenerative school meals, for instance, “could stretch existing programmes budgets to reach nearly 8 million more children each year”. This is an example of a win-win for nutrition, climate, and rural development.
Food systems at the heart of climate action
A broad consensus is forming around food and agriculture to become central pillars of climate negotiations. The agriculture sector accounts for a significant share of global emissions, is the largest employer globally, and drives biodiversity loss, but, at the same time, it is also one of the greatest potential sources of climate solutions.
COP30 was widely framed as an opportunity to translate high-level climate commitments into reality, particularly by expanding access to climate finance for smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples and women. In practice, however, COP30 fell short of these ambitions. It actually failed to deliver the people-centred, equity-driven implementation needed at a moment when global warming has already exceeded 1.5°C.
As the Paris Agreement marks its tenth anniversary, the imperative to place food systems at the centre of climate action has never been clearer. By integrating food systems into climate strategies, the next decade can reaffirm agriculture as a core pillar of climate resilience, linking mitigation, adaptation, and food security in a coordinated, multisectoral approach that safeguards the people and the planet.
Agroecology and agroforestry bring a glimpse of hope for the future
2025 shares a message: the world’s food systems are under immense strain, but transformation is possible. Agroecology and agroforestry stand out as scientifically grounded, socially just, and climate-aligned pathways to address the interconnected crises. There’s still an opportunity to create a future where food systems nourish people and the planet. With collective action, political will, and the knowledge of smallholder farmers and Indigenous Peoples, we can build resilient, sustainable food systems that offer hope for a healthier, more equitable, and climate-resilient world.