3.2.4.2 - Climate, food systems and food security

Food production and consumption patterns

Food production describes output; consumption and food security concern what people can actually obtain and use.

Rice production is concentrated in Asian farming regions, while wheat is important across temperate belts and maize across both temperate and warmer farming areas. Plantation crops have different distributions: oil palm favours humid tropical environments, while commercial wheat farms need different seasonal conditions and machinery. Irrigated rice and rain-fed cereals can occur in the same country, so national totals conceal regional specialisation. FAO's 2010–2023 production release reports 9.9 billion tonnes of primary crops globally in 2023; maize, wheat and rice supplied 91% of cereal tonnage. Tonnage combines crops with different water content and nutritional value; it is not an amount eaten per person.

Consumption depends on income, prices, culture, trade and distribution. Staple cereals supply much dietary energy, while richer diets often include more animal products and processed foods. Feeding grain to livestock creates an indirect claim on cropland; waste also separates production from intake. A food-balance estimate of energy supply is not a direct observation of each person's meals. Within a wealthy country, low-income households can still lack healthy diets.

The FAO hunger page using SOFI 2026 reports the following 2025 undernourishment estimates. Undernourishment is inadequate usual dietary energy, not every form of malnutrition.

Africa has the highest share and, in this release, the largest count among these regions. Asia's count is close despite a much lower proportion because its population is larger. Regional averages hide household and subregional inequalities. These estimates cannot be subtracted from older SOFI releases to claim change without checking revisions and methods.

Agricultural systems and productivity

An agricultural system transforms inputs into food and other outputs, with feedback through income, soil quality and future investment.

Inputs include land, labour, seed, water, fertiliser, energy and knowledge. Processes include cultivation, irrigation, grazing and harvesting. Outputs include crops, livestock, income, residues and pollution. Subsistence production mainly supports the household; commercial production mainly supplies markets. Intensive systems use relatively large inputs per unit area; extensive systems use less per unit area, often over more land. These distinctions can overlap: a small subsistence rice farm may be labour-intensive.

For an original illustrative comparison, Farm A harvests 120 tonnes from 30 ha: 4 t/ha. Farm B harvests 300 tonnes from 100 ha: 3 t/ha. B produces more, but A has higher land productivity. If A requires 12 workers and B 5, output per worker is 10 and 60 tonnes respectively. Mechanisation can increase labour productivity without giving the highest yield.

Water and heat limits, soil nutrient supply, pests, access to credit and storage influence actual productivity. A yield increase financed by excessive groundwater abstraction can undermine future water security. Evaluate the input-output system over time, including costs and environmental effects, rather than treating high output as automatically sustainable.

Two climatic types and human activity

Humid tropical and temperate oceanic climates provide contrasting opportunities, but people adapt them through different agricultural and urban systems.

In Köppen terminology, Af denotes a tropical rainforest climate: monthly mean temperatures remain at least 18°C and there is no dry month below the classification's 60 mm rainfall threshold. It occurs near the equator, including parts of Amazonia, the Congo basin and maritime South-East Asia. Cfb describes a temperate oceanic climate without a dry season and with a warm rather than hot summer: the warmest monthly mean is below 22°C and at least four months exceed 10°C. It is found in parts of western Europe, southern Chile and New Zealand. These are climatic regions, not boundaries containing identical land use.

A containing-cell lookup of the Beck et al. Köppen-Geiger dataset, version 2, 1991–2020 at 0.1° resolution, classifies the verified Belém station coordinate as Af and Woodford as Cfb. This is a regional grid classification, not a new classification calculated from the daily maximum/minimum curves or a claim about every neighbouring pixel.