#The Planet Under the Hunger Crisis
Beyond the granaries, the silent suffering of the hungry and the discarded lunchboxes together paint a paradoxical picture of our times.
Globally, the number of people facing severe hunger has exceeded **295 million**, a record high. The world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet **673 million** people still struggle on the brink of starvation.
While many are troubled by being overweight, in hunger hotspots like Gaza, Sudan, and South Sudan, millions of families face severe food insecurity and even the **threat of famine**. Countless times, I’ve been moved to tears by the sight of children in Gaza and Africa lying dying on the cold, hard ground, suffering from hunger and poverty. Many of us not only eat our fill, but are even picky eaters, throwing away leftovers without hesitation, even our favorite foods. Not eating leftovers has become a universally advocated healthy lifestyle. While wasting food, we hardly consider how many helpless people are dying on the cold, hard ground…
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## 01 The Current State of Global Hunger: The Suffering Behind the Data
The UN’s 2025 Global Food Crisis Report paints a worrying picture. More than **45% of the world’s population** lacks reliable access to safe, nutritious food.
Hunger is not merely the discomfort or pain caused by a lack of food; it has a different meaning from food insecurity.
**Food insecurity** refers to the inability to obtain safe, nutritious food that ensures development and a healthy life.
Data from the World Food Programme shows that in the 74 countries where it operates, as many as **343 million people** are facing sudden food insecurity.
Even more alarming is that **44.4 million people** are experiencing “emergency” or more severe hunger.
The distribution of hunger is extremely uneven, with **women, children, rural families, and conflict-affected communities** being the most severely affected.
## 02 Conflict and Climate: The Two Driving Forces of Hunger
Behind the hunger crisis lies a complex interplay of factors. **Conflict** is the primary driver of the current global hunger crisis.
In hunger hotspots such as Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine, conflict forces people to flee their homes, lose their livelihoods, disrupt markets, and drive up food prices.
**The climate emergency** is another major driver. Extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and heat waves not only threaten lives but also damage livelihoods and crops.
A recent report from the United Nations Development Programme warns that climate change will severely undermine global agricultural productivity and human well-being.
By the end of this century, the yields of major food crops are projected to decline in more than **90% of countries** (161 of the 176 countries analyzed).
**Economic inequality** also exacerbates the hunger crisis. When economic hardship and external factors lead to rising food prices, the poorest people are most vulnerable to accessing nutritious food.
## 03 Environmental Degradation: Land Degradation and Agricultural Dilemmas
Environmental degradation is posing a serious threat to global food production. A recent report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicates that nearly **1.7 billion people** worldwide are facing crop yield reductions due to land degradation.
This “widespread and silent crisis” not only erodes agricultural productivity but also poses a serious challenge to the health of global ecosystems.
Land, as the foundation of the agro-food system, supports **more than 95%** of global food production.
In absolute numbers, **Asian countries** are bearing the most severe impact—this stems from both the long-term accumulated debt of land degradation and their high population density.
Among those affected are **47 million** children under the age of five with stunted growth.
Studies show that if sustainable land management measures such as crop rotation were implemented, restoring just 10% of man-made degraded arable land would generate enough additional food production to meet the annual food needs of 154 million people.
## 04 Shocking: The Global Dilemma of Food Waste
While millions worldwide face the threat of hunger, food waste has reached alarming levels. Approximately 30% of global food production is lost or wasted each year.
At the household level, the average global food waste is 79 kg per person per year, and daily food waste by households worldwide could provide over 1 billion meals.
Taiwan’s annual total food loss is approximately 4.05 million metric tons, equivalent to 170 kg of food wasted per person per year, or the equivalent of throwing away a lunchbox every day.
The waste of staple grains in mainland China is equally severe. The “China Agricultural Industry Development Report 2023” released by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences shows that waste and losses are serious across the entire industrial chain of the three major staple grains.
The overall loss rates across the rice, wheat, and corn supply chains were **26.2%, 16.7%, and 18.1%**, respectively, accounting for approximately **20.7%** of the total output of these three staple grains.
## 05 Educating the Next Generation: Cultivating a Character of Cherishing Food
Faced with the severe global food security situation, educating the next generation to cherish food is particularly important. In many parts of the country, **food education** is being carried out in various forms.
Qian’an County Kindergarten conducted a series of lively and interesting “Clean Plate Campaign” themed activities, using edutainment to help children understand the importance of cherishing food through practice.
Teachers cleverly used **picture books, animated shorts, and fun nursery rhymes** to make the “Clean Plate” concept concrete and easy to understand.
Children learned about the hard work involved in producing food through picture books such as *The Little Pig’s Metamorphosis* and *There’s a Train Station in My Tummy*.
Nanzhou Town Central Kindergarten in Nanxian County carried out a food-cherishing activity themed “**Dreams Under the Rice Seeds, Love in Food**”.
Children became “little laborers,” experiencing the importance of cherishing food through hands-on work. In the “**Peeling Corn Kernels**” activity, children used their small hands to peel corn kernels, persisting even as their fingers turned red.
To extend the educational impact, teachers and students in each class jointly created a “**Clean Plate Pact**,” agreeing to “take only what you need, not be picky eaters, and finish all the food in your bowl.”
## 06 Collaborative Action: Responsibility from Government to Individuals
Solving the food crisis requires a collaborative effort from governments to individuals. The GRFC 2025 report points out that government strategies should focus on **transforming agricultural and food systems**, shifting from emergency aid or subsidy policies to resilient, inclusive, and climate-smart production and management systems.
Simultaneously, it is necessary to cultivate **trade crisis awareness**, making trade a driver of food security rather than an obstacle, and committing to building a fair, transparent, and resilient trade system.
For businesses, the tasks include building responsible supply chains that align sourcing and logistics with human rights and environmental standards, and diversifying suppliers to mitigate crisis risks.
Simultaneously, innovation is needed to enhance resilience, investing in agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and AI-powered yield forecasting to reduce waste and increase productivity.
Individuals and communities can change their eating habits by choosing diverse, locally sourced, and seasonal foods to reduce reliance on imported food and environmental impact.
They can also join or create community refrigerators or food waste sharing platforms; and partner with school cafeterias to redistribute unused leftovers to charities.
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Community volunteers take to the streets, patiently explaining the significance of the “Clean Plate Campaign” to residents, distributing leaflets, and sharing methods for the scientific storage of leftovers. More and more families are starting to keep daily “clean plate” records and share their progress in class groups.
Kindergarten children, in their innocent yet determined voices, say, “So that’s how rice grows! I’ll never waste rice again!”
From national strategic planning to choices at every family’s table, protecting food is becoming a nationwide movement.
Love knows no bounds; even the smallest act of compassion, like cooking a single grain of rice, is a profound act of kindness. Let’s all start with ourselves, cooking smaller portions according to the number of people in our families, ensuring every meal is finished, and showing our children documentaries about children and families suffering from hunger around the world, cultivating a habit of saving food from a young age! Let’s start with ourselves, saving food, and bringing more light to the world…