Geopolitical shocks, climate change and rising food costs are reshaping food security across Europe and Central Asia, leaving tens of millions unable to afford a healthy diet even as the region remains one of the world's most food-secure, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

The findings, published in the 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI), highlight how conflicts, extreme weather, economic uncertainty and changing consumer behaviour are shifting the debate beyond simply producing enough food to ensuring healthy diets remain accessible and affordable.

"The latest evidence reminds us that food security is no longer only about having enough food. It's about ensuring everybody can access nutritious and affordable food," Viorel Gutu, FAO assistant director-general and regional representative for Europe and Central Asia, told an online briefing on July 27.

"A full stomach is not necessarily a healthy diet, and a healthy diet that is beyond people's reach is not a solution either."

While Europe and Central Asia continues to outperform most other regions on traditional food security indicators, FAO warned that climate change, water scarcity, geopolitical tensions and volatile markets are creating new vulnerabilities that threaten both agricultural production and consumer access to nutritious food.

"The real measure of a resilient agricultural system is not whether it produces enough food, but whether it enables everyone to access a healthy diet," Gutu said.

The regional concerns mirror a mixed global picture. Globally, hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025, with the number of undernourished people falling to about 645mn from 659mn a year earlier and 688mn in 2022. Nevertheless, around 2.7bn people worldwide still could not afford a healthy diet, while 2.1bn experienced moderate or severe food insecurity.

The report warns that progress remains "fragile, unevenly distributed and insufficient" to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger by 2030. It also cautions that the conflict in the Middle East, together with weather extremes, higher energy and fertiliser prices and cuts to development and humanitarian funding, could slow further improvements.

Europe and Central Asia face growing vulnerabilities

Although the region remains one of the best-performing globally, FAO estimates that nearly 98mn people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2024, while almost 60mn people could not afford a healthy diet.

Raimund Jehle, FAO deputy regional representative for Europe and Central Asia, told the briefing the region had largely overcome the traditional problem of hunger but now faced more complex nutritional and economic challenges.

"The challenge is no longer simply producing enough food. It's to ensure everybody has access to a healthy, nutritious and affordable diet," he said.

Europe and Central Asia has maintained hunger levels below 2.5% for many years, but the definition of food security has broadened.

"It's no longer measured only by whether people have enough calories," Jehle said. "It's about whether families can consistently access healthy diets that support good nutrition and health."

He described three major challenges facing the region: the affordability of healthy diets, the "triple burden of malnutrition", growing inequalities within countries and rising exposure to external shocks.

"Calories alone are not enough," he said.

Those external pressures are becoming increasingly significant. "Food security does not exist in isolation," Jehle said. "Climate change, conflict, economic uncertainty and market disruptions increasingly determine what farmers can produce, what reaches the market and ultimately what consumers can afford."

Russia's war in Ukraine had demonstrated "how quickly shocks can spread across food systems", while more frequent droughts and heatwaves were placing growing pressure on agricultural production and water resources across the region, he added. Flooding affecting parts of Europe also had implications for agricultural production.

The consequences extend well beyond farming, Jehle said. "Food security has become much more than an agricultural issue. It has become a strategic issue that touches economic resilience, public health, social cohesion and national security."

He said future success would depend on "investing in sustainable, inclusive and resilient agrifood systems" capable of producing nutritious food while protecting natural resources and withstanding future shocks.

Food security challenge

Climate change is emerging as one of the biggest long-term threats to food security in Europe and Central Asia, FAO officials said. Jeremy Schlickenrieder, FAO natural resources officer, said climate impacts were already affecting every stage of the food system.

"Climate change affects the entire agrifood system — production, transport, markets," he said. Combined with existing vulnerabilities, those pressures could increase food insecurity and make healthy diets even less affordable.

"Europe is one of the fastest warming continents in the world," Schlickenrieder said, with warming translating into "more frequent and intense droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme weather events."

Rather than creating isolated problems, climate change acts as "a risk multiplier", amplifying existing economic and social vulnerabilities. "Climate impacts are happening today, and looking into the future will continue to be an issue," he said.

Water management is becoming increasingly central to food security. "Water is becoming a strategic food security issue, not just an environmental issue," Schlickenrieder said. "Water will increasingly influence what we can produce, where."

Ukraine remains a clear example of how geopolitical conflict affects both regional and global food security. "Ukraine is not only an object of food security, it is one of the main subjects of it," said Shakhnoza Muminova, head of FAO's Ukraine project office, describing the country as one of the world's major breadbaskets.

Beyond its role as a grain exporter, the war is directly affecting household food security. In frontline rural communities, around 40% of households grow food themselves. "For them, losing access to agricultural production is not simply losing income," Muminova said. "It means losing food from the family table."

Healthy diets increasingly unaffordable

Pedro Arias, an FAO economist, said nutritious foods such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products and protein remained significantly more expensive than staple foods. "Getting the right mix of fruit, vegetables, dairy products and protein — these across our region are more expensive than staple foods," he told journalists. "It's a price issue."

Although inflation has eased across much of the region, that has not translated into lower food prices. "Inflation coming down does not mean prices are down. It means prices are not growing as fast as they were," Arias said. "In fact, we are at historical highs in terms of food prices."

Higher production costs continue to feed through to consumers. "Farmers rely on fertilisers, seeds, fuel, and all these are becoming more expensive," he said. "Production is more expensive and those expenses are passed on to consumers."

The experience of food insecurity often extends beyond food prices themselves, Arias added. "It doesn't just depend on the price of food. It also depends on the whole context in which those households are living."

Unexpected medical bills, heating costs or transport expenses can all reduce households' ability to purchase nutritious food even when food itself remains available.

Regional differences also remain pronounced. "The amount of money spent from the household budget on food is different," Arias said. "So the way people feel their food insecurity varies across the region."

Globally, the report estimates that the average minimum cost of a healthy diet reached $4.28 per person per day in purchasing power parity terms in 2025, up from $3.44 in 2021. Although the number of people unable to afford such diets has fallen to 2.69bn, nearly one in three people worldwide still cannot afford healthy food.

Obesity replacing hunger as the main nutritional challenge

Even as hunger has declined across Europe and Central Asia, obesity and diet-related disease are becoming increasingly important public health concerns. More than one in five adults in the region are now living with obesity, while childhood overweight rates exceed the global average.

Mary Kenny, FAO food safety and consumer protection officer, said the region faced "serious and increasing malnutrition issues" despite its progress against hunger.

"Poor diet quality, including insufficient diversity of food, is a challenge," she said. 

She said diets were increasingly shifting towards cheaper processed foods. "We see diets in our region shifting towards cheaper, highly processed foods. Fruit and vegetable intake remains below recommended levels in many countries, while consumption of salt, sugar and unhealthy fats continues to rise."

Those trends are driving non-communicable diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 

"Poor diets, not hunger, are now the main driver of ill health in Europe and Central Asia," Kenny said.

Adult obesity reached 22.6% in the region, well above the global average, while anaemia among women aged 15-49 rose to 21.3% in 2023.

"These are not only health statistics," Kenny said. "Rising obesity and diet-related health conditions place pressure on health systems, reduce productivity, affect wellbeing and deepen inequalities, especially for low-income households."

Simply encouraging consumers to make healthier choices would not solve the problem, she added. "It is too simplistic to say consumers need to make better choices."

Instead, governments needed to address the wider food environment, including affordability, availability, marketing, food safety and consumer trust. "We need to focus on a food environment that makes healthy diets the affordable and convenient choice."

Without action, the FAO warned, Europe and Central Asia risks falling short of both global nutrition targets and wider sustainable development goals despite remaining one of the world's most food-secure regions.