ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022: Statistics and Trends

Diet quality is a critical link between food security and nutrition. Poor diet quality can lead to different forms of malnutrition, including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity. For the first time, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 report included global, regional and country estimates of the cost and affordability of a healthy diet. These are useful indicators of economic access to nutritious foods and healthy diets, one of the core principles embedded in the definition of food security. Around the world, the costs and the unaffordability of a healthy diet have increased because of the combined effects of inflation in consumer food prices and income losses, stemming from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

The cost of a healthy diet in the region was already unaffordable for vast numbers of people before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.⁴ This is despite Asia and the Pacific having some of the highest producers of multiple commodities such as rice, millet, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables, fish, pork, milk and many others. Vulnerable populations such as those below the poverty line (earning less than USD 1.9 per day) are particularly at risk of poor nutritional outcomes as these high costs steer them towards cheaper and calorie-rich foods with high salt and sugar or fat content. The region, as reported in the earlier chapters, has some of the highest rates of stunting and wasting in the world, as well as rising childhood and adult obesity, which clearly point to poor diets and the unaffordability of healthy foods. ⁴ FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2021. Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2020: Maternal and child diets at the heart of improving nutrition. Bangkok, FAO. http://doi.org/10.4060/cb2895en

The cost of a healthy diet is defined as the minimum cost of foods, using the least expensive available items in each country, that meet a set of dietary recommendations based on ten national Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs). It takes into account food preferences that are consistent with local cultural norms and the existing consumption patterns.^{5 5} Herforth, A., Bai, Y., Venkat, A., Mahrt, K., Ebel, A. & Masters, W.A. 2020. Cost and affordability of healthy diets across and within countries. Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Technical Study No. 9. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb2431en

Between 2019 and 2020, Asia and the Pacific experienced the highest surge in the cost of a healthy diet (4.5 percent). The cost in the Oceania subregion increased by 3.6 percent (Figure 11). This surge pushed up the average cost of a healthy diet to USD 3.98 per person per day (Table A-13). Overall, the average cost has risen 9.3 percent since 2017. In Eastern Asia, the cost in 2020 was the highest at USD 4.71 per person per day. This represents a 6.0 percent increase over the previous year and is higher than the average rise for the region between 2019 (Figure 11). This also represents a 13 percent rise since 2017 in a subregion dominated by richer and developed economies. By comparison, the rise in costs for Southern Asia and South-eastern Asia were 9.1 percent and 9.3 percent respectively over the same four-year period.

The cost of a healthy diet could continue to rise. Food prices surged in 2021 and 2022, but data are not fully available to provide updated estimates. The trend in the affordability of healthy diets in 2021 and 2022 is less clear due to differences in income growth.

Almost 1.9 billion people or 44.5 percent of the population in Asia and the Pacific could not afford a healthy diet in 2020 due to the increased cost. The region experienced an overall increase of 78 million in the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet between 2019 and 2020 (Figure 12).

The largest proportion of people, globally, who cannot afford a healthy diet live in Southern Asia with more than 1.3 billion. This represents nearly 70 percent of the total population of the subregion (1.88 billion). Almost 54 percent of the population South-eastern Asia (nearly 347 million) cannot afford a healthy diet. In the subregion of Oceania, 2.7 percent of the population cannot afford a healthy diet reflecting a relatively small increase of 0.2 percent since 2017 and a decrease of 0.1 percent from 2019. However, given the trends in PoU, overweight and obesity discussed in the previous chapters, the average cost of USD 3.06 per person per day, the lowest among all subregions, remains prohibitively high (Table A-13).

At least 50 percent of the population cannot afford healthy diet in 10 of the 21 countries shown in Figure 13. There are relatively small increases in the majority of countries over 2019 and 2020 but given that Asia is the world’s most populous continent (4.5 billion), these increases and those in countries not shown in the figure, add up to 78 million. The region had seen improvements in affordability between 2018 and 2019, particularly in the Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and the South-eastern Asia subregions. However, these have been cancelled by the price surge of 2019-20 (Table A-12).

The lack of affordability of healthy diets is a major driver of food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms in the Asia and Pacific region. Immediate responses to the overlapping crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine included the provision of social safety nets, cash transfers and subsidies on food. Transformative steps need to be implemented through agrifood systems-based approach to bring healthy diets within reach of the poor. These include, among others, social protection measures, agricultural diversification, strategic trade measures to address gaps in local availability of nutritious foods and investment in rural infrastructure to stabilize supply and ensure affordability.