Oxfam Italy: the global food industry fuels growing inequalities
In its new publication, ‘The food system is broken,’ Oxfam Italia offers a comprehensive overview on the global food system, analysing data and tracing the roots of the inequalities produced by the system in which we live.
The new report ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ (SOFI) published on 28 July 2025 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) reveals the inequalities that permeate the global food system. Over 670 million people suffer from hunger to varying degrees due to wars, aid cuts, food price speculation and climate crises. The UN agency's goal of ‘zero hunger’ by 2030 is therefore unachievable.
There has been an overall decline in global hunger from 8.5% to 8.2%, but the situation in West Asia and the Middle East is worsening, with the epicentre of the crisis located in Africa. At the same time, the main countries involved in humanitarian aid want to cut their contributions by 28% until 2026, and the World Food Programme will see its resources cut by 40% next year, leaving 2.6 billion people - one third of humanity without a healthy diet.
On the other hand, the wealth of global billionaires has increased by $2 trillion since 2024. Since 2015, the richest 1% have accumulated $33.9 trillion – enough to end global poverty 22 times over. Yet hunger in poor countries persists, not by chance, but because it serves a purpose.
This fact reveals that it is not a question of lack of food; hunger arises from the unequal distribution of resources due to conflicts, the climate crisis, misguided policies and speculation mechanisms.
Petrelli, spokesperson for Oxfam Italia and policy advisor for food security says that aid cuts have to be reversed, ongoing speculation has to be curbed through a more regulated and transparent food market, and that richer countries invest in local agricultural systems, on which the survival of the populations of the poorest countries depends.
Regarding Gaza, we can speak of an unprecedented famine caused entirely by Israel's campaign to cancel the Strip. World leaders complicit in Israel's siege have failed to protect the Palestinian people. Aid and brief humanitarian pauses are nowhere near enough to address the crisis. Decisive action and comprehensive restrictive measures against Israel are needed to achieve an immediate and permanent ceasefire and allow all the aid needed to save millions of lives to enter.