On World Food Day, WFP promotes innovation and early action as shocks to the global food system mount

World Food Day was created in 1979, to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1945. This year’s theme, “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow”, puts the focus on the original ideas and new tools that can help end hunger.

Innovation is helping WFP reach people facing hunger faster and at lower cost: from forecasts that trigger assistance before a drought or flood strikes, to digital tools that get help to families within days, to amphibious vehicles that reach communities where roads end. 

Across WFP’s operations, innovations reached 132.5 million people in 75 countries and territories last year.

For WFP, World Food Day is also a day to stand with the 266 million people who faced acute hunger worldwide last year, and with the staff and partners who reach them in some of the most dangerous places on earth.

“Every year, we mark World Food Day because we share a belief: no family, no child, should go to bed with an empty stomach,” said WFP Acting Executive Director Carl Skau. “The challenges behind the rise in global hunger are mostly man-made: increasing conflict, a triple chokepoint on food and agricultural trade, and more frequent extreme weather. But the solutions are in our hands. There is enough food in the world for everyone, and we have at our fingertips new technologies that let us act more effectively than ever before.”

This year, the day comes at a perilous moment. Tensions in the straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab, along with the escalation in the Black Sea, have created a triple chokepoint for global shipping. This is hitting food production and trade at the same time, pushing up the cost of fuel, fertilizer, transport and food. These shocks could reinforce one another, and on top of conflict, displacement and deep cuts to humanitarian funding, they threaten to push millions more people into acute hunger.

WFP estimates that the 2026–2027 El Niño could push an additional 49 million people into acute food insecurity across 45 countries by the end of 2027. Together with extreme heat and drought in major producing countries, these shocks pushed the FAO Food Price Index to an almost four-year high in September. That month, 16 countries recorded food inflation above 15 percent, up from ten in January.

Humanitarian supply chains are not spared from the disruption. WFP cargo bound for Yemen, Sudan and the Horn of Africa, where food assistance is a lifeline for millions of people, has been affected. 

WFP is calling on world leaders and partners to:

• End conflict, protect civilians and humanitarian workers, and allow safe and sustained access to people in need.
• Provide flexible and predictable funding for the most severe hunger crises.
• Invest in anticipatory action so that forecast shocks such as El Niño do not become emergencies.
• Bring proven innovations to scale through partnerships with business and technology.

The solutions to get ahead of hunger already exist. With the funding and access to use them at scale, WFP can protect people from future shocks that would otherwise set communities back for years to come.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of weather extremes.