Food and Poverty

Every year, when we talk about poverty and its most extreme form—hunger—we should feel ashamed—ashamed that we allow this state of affairs to continue. Today, 645 million people face hunger, even though we know there is enough food for everyone. It seems as though this has nothing to do with us. But it does. The world is interconnected, and other people’s suffering affects us in ways we may not even realise. We are not an island in the middle of the ocean. But even if we were, the ocean would remind us of its presence, one way or another.

On 16 October, we mark World Food Day, followed a day later by the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. On these days, let us reflect on the profoundly unjust world we live in. Can we imagine what hunger really means? What does it mean to be unable to provide your own child with a decent meal?

Access to food and drinking water, their distribution, and poverty are closely interconnected issues. Food, drinking water, a safe home, healthcare and education meet basic human needs and form the foundation of a dignified life. As long as a large part of humanity lives in extreme poverty and faces hunger, inadequate housing and limited access to healthcare and education, the world will remain troubled, unsafe and scarred by conflict. Without addressing these injustices, we will struggle to tackle environmental problems effectively, address the causes of forced migration and secure lasting peace.

This year’s World Food Day theme is “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow.” The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) emphasises the importance of combining new solutions with traditional knowledge and community participation. As it points out: “The world already produces enough food to nourish everyone”. Yet 645 million people still face hunger. The central challenge, therefore, is ensuring everyone has access to nutritious food while safeguarding natural resources for future generations.

This year, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty focuses on “Safe Homes for All”, under the broader theme “United for Peace and Human Rights”. A safe, affordable home is the foundation of a dignified life and makes it easier to access healthcare, education, and employment. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed in his 2025 message: “Poverty is not a personal failure; it is a systemic failure – a denial of dignity and human rights.” Both days thus remind us of our shared responsibility to build a world in which everyone can meet their basic needs and live with dignity.

There Is Enough Food

If the world already produces enough food for everyone, what are we doing wrong? Food undoubtedly plays a central role in meeting basic human needs. Why, then, are so many people hungry? We have cutting-edge technologies and extraordinary transport capabilities—we can have fresh fruit from thousands of kilometres away on our plates almost the very next day. Why, then, do we allow so much suffering, such a dark stain on humanity's “soul”? Do we really not care about our brothers and sisters—our fellow human beings, with whom we share this beautiful planet as one family?

Can we not see the simplest solution: ensuring a fairer sharing of the world’s resources? We can build the sharing economy on this principle. The starting point is simple: ensure food reaches the people who need it. We can redirect surpluses to where they are urgently needed, rather than throw them away. At the same time, we must create conditions in which everyone has reliable access to food and other necessities.

As we mark World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, let us reflect on this and take steps in the right direction. Ending hunger and poverty is not impossible—the first step is to recognise that it is possible.

How Can You Watch These People Die

“Throughout the world there are men, women and little children who have not even the essentials to stay alive; they crowd the cities of many of the poorest countries in the world. This crime fills Me with shame. My brothers, how can you watch these people die before your eyes and call yourselves men?” (Maitreya, Message No. 11, 5 January 1978)

According to the latest comprehensive United Nations estimates, approximately 645 million people experienced hunger in 2025, representing 7.8 per cent of the world’s population. Although this was a slight improvement on the previous two years, hunger continued to increase in much of Africa and western Asia.

An even broader measure reveals the true scale of the problem. Approximately 2.1 billion people, or 25.8 per cent of the global population, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025. This means that they did not have regular access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. (FAO)

These figures are all the more difficult to comprehend because the world already produces enough food to feed everyone. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has stated that sufficient food is produced to feed the global population, while emphasising that the central problems are access to and the availability of nutritious food.

An often-cited article published in the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture estimated that global agriculture was already producing enough food to feed approximately ten billion people. Yet hunger persists because access to food is profoundly unequal, large quantities are lost or wasted, and millions of people lack sufficient income or other means to obtain adequate and nutritious food. This contradiction is especially striking when we remember that the world’s population stood at approximately 8.3 billion people as of July 2026.

The figures for drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene are similarly alarming. According to the latest joint report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, published in August 2025 and based on data for 2024:

• 2.1 billion people, or approximately one person in four, lacked access to safely managed drinking water;
• 3.4 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation services;
• 1.7 billion people lacked basic hygiene services at home.

Among those without access to safely managed drinking water were 106 million people who still obtained their drinking water directly from untreated surface sources.

In a world where sufficient basic goods exist to meet everyone’s needs, the fact that billions of people lack reliable access to food, clean water, and sanitation represents a profound social, political, and moral failure. In this sense, we can understand why Maitreya calls it a crime.

The deliberate denial of food or water can, under certain circumstances, constitute a violation of national or international law. More broadly, when people are systematically deprived of the basic conditions required for life and dignity, their fundamental human rights are being violated.


The Right to Food and Water

The right to food is recognised in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The article recognises everyone’s right to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.

The Declaration itself is not a treaty and is therefore not legally binding in the same manner as an international convention. Nevertheless, it has become the foundation of modern international human rights law, and many of its principles have been incorporated into legally binding agreements and national constitutions.

One of the most important of these agreements is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 3 January 1976.

Article 11 of the Covenant recognises:

• the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing, and housing;
• the right to the continuous improvement of living conditions;
• the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger;
• and the need “to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need”.

This final provision is particularly significant for the idea of the sharing economy. It recognises that freedom from hunger cannot be guaranteed solely through action within individual states. It also requires international cooperation and a fairer distribution of available food supplies according to human need. In this sense, Article 11 provides an important legal foundation for a global system of sharing essential goods, beginning with food.

The meaning of the right to adequate food was further clarified by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in General Comment No. 12, adopted on 12 May 1999. It is also summarised and explained in the United Nations publication The Right to Adequate Food, Fact Sheet No. 34.

States that are parties to the Covenant are legally obliged to respect, protect, and fulfil the right to adequate food. They must not interfere with existing access to food, must protect people against actions by companies or other third parties that threaten such access, and must take concrete steps towards ensuring that everyone can obtain adequate food. Although the full realisation of this right may be achieved progressively, states have immediate obligations to take action, guarantee its exercise without discrimination, and adopt the measures necessary to prevent and alleviate hunger. 

As of August 2026, 173 states were parties to the Covenant and were therefore legally bound by its provisions.

The right to water was further explained by the Committee in General Comment No. 15, adopted in 2002. It defines the right to water as the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water for personal and domestic use.

On 28 July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognised the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights.


A Question of Our Humanity

Access to food and clean water is therefore not an act of charity. It is a fundamental human right and an essential condition of human dignity. Yet laws and international agreements express only one aspect of the issue. There is also an ethical and moral dimension: the question of our humanity.

How can we accept a world in which hundreds of millions of people are hungry, more than two billion lack safely managed drinking water, and billions lack adequate sanitation, even though humanity possesses sufficient knowledge, productive capacity, resources, and technology to meet these needs?

The persistence of hunger is not simply the result of an absolute global shortage of food. It is closely connected with poverty, inequality, armed conflict, climate disruption, economic instability, inadequate public services, and the failure to share available resources more equitably.

We should therefore remember Maitreya’s words:

“My brothers, how can you watch these people die before your eyes and call yourselves men?”

These words are not merely an accusation. They are also a call to awaken our compassion, recognise our shared responsibility, and organise the world’s resources so that every human being may live in dignity.

Source: THE SHARING ECONOMY: Implementing Article 25 in the Twenty-First Century

Why Share?

The world we live in undoubtedly requires profound change. However, these changes cannot be addressed in isolation. It is not enough to tackle only one problem, such as the environmental crisis, while neglecting global inequality. Likewise, economic reforms cannot succeed if they fail to take account of the environment and the limits of our planet.

We must therefore address these problems in a comprehensive and interconnected way, since they are closely intertwined and often intensify one another. Poverty, for example, cannot be separated from climate change, migration, political instability, or the lack of access to essential goods.

Is there a solution that could address several complex and interconnected global problems at the same time?

Perhaps the sharing economy offers such a solution. Let us explore why and how.

The sharing economy is an umbrella term for a range of measures and economic models at the local, national, and global levels that, through a fairer distribution of goods and resources, ensure that every person on Earth has access to the necessities required for a dignified life.

Why is this important?

When every person is provided with at least the necessities of life, their life and health are no longer under immediate threat. This means fewer social and economic conflicts, less forced migration, and reduced pressure on the environment. At the same time, it creates greater opportunities for the development of poor, neglected, and degraded communities and regions.

For such a system to become possible, countries must cooperate. Above all, they must share natural resources, food, medicines, scientific knowledge, and technologies more fairly. Such cooperation reduces the likelihood of conflict and encourages the joint resolution of other problems, including the climate and environmental crises.

When countries share resources and goods instead of hoarding or appropriating them, they also gradually move away from the logic of unlimited wealth accumulation and perpetual economic growth. The purpose of the economy is then no longer primarily to generate profit, but to meet human needs and protect our shared planetary home.

Nor should we overlook human dignity, which is often denied to people living in extreme poverty. A fairer distribution of goods strengthens mutual trust, solidarity, and the sense of belonging to one human family. In this way, it increases the prospects for peace, genuine development, and the well-being of the entire world.

These are only a few of the advantages that the sharing economy offers in comparison with today’s inadequate economic models, which are largely based on selfishness, greed, competition, and accumulation.

Why, then, should we not give the sharing economy a chance?

Unnecessary Hunger in a World of Abundance

A new report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI 2026), was published recently, on 21 July 2026. This year’s report is subtitled Understanding and Addressing the High Cost of a Healthy Diet.

SOFI is the United Nations’ flagship annual report on hunger, food security and the various forms of malnutrition around the world. It is jointly prepared by five United Nations agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

 
Progress That Must Not Obscure the Reality

At first glance, this year’s report contains some encouraging figures. Global hunger declined in 2025 for the third consecutive year. Approximately 645 million people, or 7.8 per cent of the world’s population, faced hunger, understood in the report as chronic undernourishment. The proportion was 8.1 per cent in 2024 and 8.6 per cent in 2022.

Despite this improvement, 645 million people suffering from hunger are still 645 million too many. To put this into perspective, the European Union, comprising 27 countries, had a population of approximately 452 million on 1 January 2026. The number of people facing hunger worldwide therefore exceeds the entire population of the European Union by approximately 193 million.

 
2.1 Billion People Lack Reliable Access to Food

Hunger is the most severe form of food deprivation, but it does not include everyone who experiences difficulties in accessing food.

In 2025, approximately 2.1 billion people, or 25.8 per cent of the world’s population, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. This means that they did not have consistent and reliable access to sufficient quantities of quality food and were sometimes forced to reduce the amount of food they consumed or forgo nutritious foods.

 
One-Third of Humanity Cannot Afford a Healthy Diet

In 2025, approximately 2.69 billion people, or 32.7 per cent of the world’s population, were unable to afford a healthy diet. This means that almost one person in three worldwide did not have sufficient income to afford a diverse, balanced and nutritionally adequate diet.

A healthy diet does not simply provide sufficient calories. It must also be diverse and contain adequate amounts of protein, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. A person may therefore consume a relatively sufficient number of calories and still suffer from malnutrition because their diet lacks diversity.

The report also highlights the consequences for children. Approximately 150 million children under five years of age are affected by stunting as a result of long-term undernutrition. Only 30.8 per cent of children aged between 6 and 23 months receive a minimum dietary diversity. More than two-thirds of the youngest children therefore do not consume a sufficiently diverse diet to support healthy physical and cognitive development.

 
Healthy Diets Are Becoming Increasingly Expensive

The global average cost of a healthy diet reached 4.28 purchasing power parity dollars per person per day in 2025. It stood at $ 3.44 in 2021 and $ 2.94 in 2017.

Purchasing power parity makes it possible to compare the actual purchasing power of money across countries. It is therefore not a simple conversion of amounts into United States dollars, but an estimate of how much local currency is required in each country to purchase a comparable basket of goods.

The final price of food is not determined by agricultural production alone. Post-farm-gate activities account for between 70 and 75 per cent of the price paid by consumers. Processing, logistics and wholesale activities may account for up to 40 per cent of total costs. Reducing the cost of a healthy diet therefore also requires investment in transport infrastructure, storage facilities, cold chains, irrigation, research and more efficient agrifood value chains.

 
Hunger and Other Global Crises

Hunger and food insecurity cannot be considered separately from other global problems.

When people lack access to food, water, land, employment and basic social protection, poverty, despair and social tensions increase. A lack of food and opportunities for a decent life may be among the factors that force people to leave their homes. FAO identifies food insecurity, poverty, a lack of decent employment, conflict, inequality, environmental degradation and the consequences of climate change as important drivers of migration.

Hunger is often a consequence of war, but it can also intensify conflict. The World Food Programme warns of a vicious cycle in which conflict causes hunger, while hunger can deepen instability and contribute to further conflict. Wars displace people from their land, destroy crops and infrastructure, disrupt trade and increase food prices.

The same applies to climate change. Droughts, floods, heatwaves and other weather extremes reduce agricultural production, destroy livelihoods and increase food insecurity and forced displacement.

The SOFI 2026 report warns that conflicts, weather extremes and reductions in official development assistance and humanitarian aid threaten the progress achieved. It particularly highlights the consequences of conflict in the Middle East, which may further raise food prices due to higher energy and fertiliser costs. According to current projections, between 510 million and 520 million people could still be facing hunger in 2030. The potential effects of weather events, such as El Niño, in 2026 and 2027 are not yet included in these estimates.

 
Sharing of Food

In a world with extraordinary knowledge, technology, productive capacity and wealth, hunger is not simply the result of a shortage of food. It is primarily the result of poverty, conflict, unequal access to land and other resources, climate shocks, high prices, and political and economic decisions.

At the same time, vast quantities of food are lost or wasted. According to FAO, approximately 13 per cent of food is lost during production, transport, storage and processing, before it reaches retail markets. A further 19 per cent is wasted in households, food services and retail.

Reducing food loss and waste is important, but it will not eliminate hunger on its own. Food must also be distributed more efficiently and equitably, while people must have sufficient income and social protection to afford it. Support for small-scale farmers, investment in local production and infrastructure, more accessible markets, adequate social protection, humanitarian assistance and closer international cooperation are all essential.

When food surpluses are produced in some parts of the world while people elsewhere are starving, the international community should establish more effective mechanisms for sharing food and other essential resources. Food is not merely an ordinary market commodity; it is a basic necessity of life and a human right. Access to it should not depend solely on an individual’s purchasing power or place of birth.

Hunger is therefore not merely a statistical, economic or humanitarian problem. It is a moral failure of the international community. The fact that hundreds of millions of people still do not have enough food in an age of extraordinary technological progress, immense productive capacity and almost unimaginable wealth is one of the greatest contradictions of the modern world.

The latest figures show that progress is possible. Yet a slow decline in hunger is no reason for complacency. A world without hunger does not require a miracle. It requires political will, cooperation and a sharing of food and other essential global resources.

 

Sources

• The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026, a joint report by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. (FAOHome)
• FAO: UN Report: Global Hunger Levels Ease for Third Consecutive Year as Regional Disparities Persist, 21 July 2026. (FAOHome)
• United Nations: Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger. (Sustainable Development Goals)
• Eurostat: EU Population Continued to Grow in 2025, 10 July 2026. (European Commission)
• FAO: data and explanations concerning food insecurity, migration, food loss and food waste. (FAOHome)
• World Food Programme: information on the links between hunger and armed conflict. (WFP)

Greed Arises from Fear

What truly drives us to desire more than we need? Not merely more, but much more.

Behind greed, there is often not so much a desire for wealth as fear: fear that tomorrow, a month from now, or a year from now, we may be living in deprivation and poverty. And so we accumulate possessions.

Yet the more we have, the more afraid we become of losing it. We therefore seek to protect ourselves and separate ourselves from others. We want even more because we believe that greater wealth also provides greater security. We buy security systems, build high fences, while nations accumulate weapons in much the same way.

The more we have, the less happy we may actually become. We grow increasingly fearful, distrustful, and convinced that others pose a threat to us. We begin to see danger in those who have almost nothing. The poor, migrants, foreigners, and those who are different become threats in our eyes.

At the root of greed, then, lies fear: fear of deprivation, of the future, of loss, and of other people. Yet accumulation will not free us from fear and insecurity. On the contrary, it will only deepen them.

Trust and Prosperity

How can we break out of this vicious cycle?

If we ensured a fairer distribution of goods, not only within our local communities but also globally, people would feel safer and more content. They would trust others more, while the fear of deprivation would diminish. There would consequently be less need to accumulate wealth.

If goods were shared more fairly, we would not have to strive so relentlessly for wealth, because even in difficult times we could rely on others' support. We would know that we would not be left alone in times of need.

Our mutual trust would also grow. We would no longer view others primarily as competitors, but as fellow human beings, friends, and members of a community who help one another.

When everyone has enough, we are all truly wealthy.

The Sharing Economy Is Already Familiar to Us All

The economy often seems very complicated, understood only by highly educated economists. It also seems that there are many different economic approaches worldwide. And yet we may ask ourselves: what is the economy, really?

The word economy is, in its very origin, connected with the home, the family and the community. It comes from the ancient Greek word oikonomia: oikos means home, family and the goods needed for life, while nomos means law or management. The economy, therefore, originally means the careful management of goods for the well-being of a family or community.

So let us look at how the economy works within the family or household, the smallest socio-economic community.

In families around the world, regardless of origin, religion, political system, culture or tradition, we can observe a common economic characteristic: the sharing of goods.

Family members do not compete with one another; they share goods. By this we also mean extended families and households. It is hard to imagine parents not sharing goods with their children, grandparents or sick family members. Without sharing, humanity could not have survived at all, since in the first years of life the human being is among the most helpless creatures on Earth.

Economists often teach us that competition and competitiveness are good. But let us look at the consequences within our broadest family – humanity. Hundreds of millions of people are hungry, and a large part of humanity is, in one way or another, deprived of the most basic goods. Is this really a successful economic system?

What if we took what we have known how to do in families for thousands of years and applied it to broader communities – local, national and global? This means: sharing goods.

In this way, we could live side by side, in peace and prosperity.

The sharing economy has therefore long been familiar to us, since we live it every day at home, in the family. Now let us begin to put it into practice in our planetary home as well, within our great family – humanity.

Heat and Sharing

The unbearable heat of recent days will soon pass. At least for a while, we will be able to breathe a sigh of relief. But for how long? What will follow? A catastrophic drought, a violent storm, another heatwave — or all of these one after another?

The worst thing would be for all of us simply to shrug it off and continue as if nothing had happened, or as if nothing were happening. We could call this indifference. Or complacency.

It is never too late to act. It is too late only if we fail to act.

But what can we do? Is it enough to drive electric cars and install solar panels on our roofs? Is the so-called green transition enough to save the world from the devastating consequences of global warming?

Undoubtedly, the green transition — a set of measures that lead us away from fossil fuels — is the right path. The question, however, is whether the climate crisis can be addressed primarily by developed countries, which have the resources for such a transition.

If, for example, everyone in Europe drove electric cars and used only green energy sources, would that save the global climate? No. The climate is a global, interconnected whole.

The so-called Third World, or the poorer part of humanity — and poor people also live within the richest countries — has neither the economic capacity nor any real incentive to move towards green energy sources. People who struggle every day to survive can hardly think about solar panels, electric cars, and the energy renovation of buildings.

How many people are we talking about?

“In 2024, approximately 673 million people were chronically hungry, while around 2.3 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. In addition, 2.6 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2024. In 2025, approximately 808 million people are expected to live in extreme poverty, meaning people living on less than 3 US dollars a day.

The situation is similarly alarming across healthcare, housing and education. Approximately 4.6 billion people lack full access to essential health services, 2.8 billion people live in inadequate housing, and around 273 million children and young people are not enrolled in school.

We can therefore conclude that more than half of the approximately 8.1 billion people currently living on Earth are deprived of one or more basic goods, on which not only quality of life and human dignity depend, but often survival itself.” (Deprivation and Inequality)

Thus, more than half of the world’s population — perhaps many more — mostly has no real possibility of making a significant contribution to climate protection. Moreover, many are forced by poverty to use the dirtiest and most outdated energy sources to cook a meal, heat tea, warm their homes, or travel to a neighbouring town: kerosene, coal, firewood, and other forms of biomass.

That is why the climate crisis cannot be solved solely through technological solutions in the richest part of the world. As long as billions of people do not have access to reliable, clean and affordable energy, the green transition will remain incomplete, unjust and insufficiently effective. But even before that, they need food, drinking water, adequate housing, healthcare and everything else that makes survival and human dignity possible.

This is precisely where the importance of sharing becomes clear. If we truly want to reduce emissions and protect the climate, we must share knowledge, technologies, financial resources and essential goods with countries and people who do not have enough power to make such a transition on their own. Climate justice means that no one should remain trapped in poverty and dirty energy simply because they were born in a poorer part of the world — or in a poorer part of a wealthy country.

The practical realisation of the principle of sharing is the sharing economy.