Global hunger falls from 35 percent in 1970 to 7.8 percent

Global hunger declined for the third consecutive year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 report.

The new report estimates that 7.8 percent of the world’s people were undernourished in 2025.

The FAO report notes that less than 2.5 percent of people living in the U.S., Canada, Eastern Asia, and Europe are undernourished. Therefore, its calculations chiefly encompass the extent of hunger in developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and the rest of Asia.

Armed conflict and violence remain the primary drivers of acute food insecurity in 12 out of 13 hunger hotspots identified by the World Food Programme and the FAO.

The drop to 7.8 percent is a huge improvement since 1970, when undernourishment afflicted nearly 35 percent of people living in developing countries.

The new estimate is down from 8.1 percent in 2024 and 8.5 percent in 2023. Overall, 645 million people were still facing hunger in 2025.

While that is good news, the new estimate remains above the pre-pandemic nadir of 7.2 percent in 2017. The FAO report projects that the level of hunger will decline by 20 percent during the rest of this decade, but that 510 million people will still be undernourished in 2030. This trend falls well short of the United Nations’ sustainable development goal of zero hunger by 2030.