What we're watching across food systems in 2026

The year 2025 upended many of the assumptions underpinning global food systems. Foreign aid budgets shrank sharply, long-standing institutions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development were forced into retrenchment, and governments signaled that the era of predictable, rules-based food assistance is over. What comes next is not simply a question of replacing lost funding. It is about whether food aid — and the food systems it sustains in regions prone to conflict, extreme weather, or other disasters — can withstand a period of sustained instability. “As we commence 2026, the question for global food systems is not whether the pressure will intensify, but whether we will respond with the urgency and coordination the context demands,” AGRA President Alice Ruhweza told Devex. The backdrop is stark. At least 318 million people globally are facing acute food insecurity, more than double the number in 2019, according to the World Food Programme. Global food aid only covers less than half of the total need. “2026 will be the year the world has to admit a hard truth … humanitarian aid alone cannot keep pace with today’s food crises. With resources shrinking and shocks multiplying, the real test will be whether we invest in agriculture not just as a source of food, but as the first line of defense for stability, resilience, and recovery,” Beth Bechdol, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, told Devex. The strain she described is exposing deeper weaknesses in food systems more broadly — affecting not just in poorer nations, but the entire world. “We are entering an age of turbulence, driven by climate risk, geopolitical stress, and economic uncertainty. Food systems optimized for efficiency are increasingly fragile under these conditions, forcing a shift toward resilience,” said Jack Bobo, a “food futurist” and executive director of the UCLA Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies. That tension between fragility and resilience will shape the year ahead. As 2026 begins, five trends stand out as particularly consequential for the future of food aid and food systems worldwide. 1. How institutions adapt to shrinking budgets The most visible shock to the global food system in 2025 was the collapse of USAID, the biggest aid agency for the world’s biggest food aid funder. But the pullback in development spending went far beyond Washington. Across Europe, official development assistance declined sharply. The European Commission is cutting €2 billion from its main pool of development funds. The United Kingdom is reducing ODA by about £6 billion. Germany is set to slash its funding for humanitarian assistance by half, while France has cut more than €2 billion in foreign assistance since 2024. The consequences are already being felt on the ground. The World Food Programme has warned it is being forced to cut rations even in the most severe crises. WFP said in December that it would reduce rations in Sudan, the world’s biggest hunger crisis, where nearly half the population — or 21.2 million people — faces acute food insecurity. “We will be having to reduce from January to 70% rations for communities that are facing famine, and 50% for those that are at risk of famine,” Ross Smith, WFP’s director of emergency preparedness and response, told reporters last month. “As of April, we will fall off a cliff when it comes to funding.” Other agencies are also under pressure, but some are adjusting their models. As traditional contributions decline, the Food and Agriculture Organization has leaned more heavily on its partnerships with issue-specific global funds focused on climate, environment, and health, such as the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, and the Pandemic Fund. FAO mobilized about $1.624 billion in voluntary contributions in 2025, an 8% decline from 2024 but still among the highest results in its history, according to the agency’s Director-General Qu Dongyu. He noted that vertical funds such as the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, and the Pandemic Fund accounted for 45% of mobilized resources. In 2024, vertical funds accounted for just 24% of the total. In 2026, attention will be on how agencies adapt: who partners differently, who survives the cuts, and who is forced to scale back ambitions. The downturn also sharpens a longer-standing issue: domestic investment. African countries invest about 5.2% of their agricultural gross domestic product back into agriculture, compared with 8.7% in Asia and 7.3% in Latin America. And when it comes to national budget priorities, the picture is even bleaker. In 2022, African governments allocated just 3.8% of public spending to agriculture, well below the African Union’s 10% target under the 2014 Malabo Declaration. With external aid shrinking, pressure is mounting for governments to fill the gap themselves. 2. What happens next for US food aid? Few questions loom larger in 2026 than the future of U.S. food assistance. Take Food for Peace. For more than seven decades, it has been the world’s largest food aid program, providing roughly $2 billion in assistance in 2023 and reaching tens of millions of people through in-kind food, cash transfers, and nutrition programs. The dismantling of USAID, which administered it, has left the program in limbo. Behind the scenes, the Trump administration has been working to transfer Food for Peace from the State Department, which absorbed what was left of USAID, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While official details remain scarce, advocates say the shift reflects a broader push to align food aid more closely with U.S. agricultural export and trade interests. In a letter to the administration last month, Democratic members of Congress warned that former USAID humanitarian staff now working at the State Department’s Office of Global Food Security have not been consulted about a redesign that could strip the program down to purchasing and shipping U.S. commodities, without resources to distribute them to people in need. The lawmakers cautioned that such a shift would turn Food for Peace into a “dumping program disconnected from the strategic objective of feeding those most food insecure.” There are also concerns that USDA, which focuses on serving the interests of U.S. agriculture and American farmers, lacks the humanitarian expertise and surge capacity that USAID built over decades. At the same time, observers from the right have argued that the program is inefficient. The American Enterprise Institute has said Food for Peace costs are 20% to 30% higher because of legislative mandates, suggesting there is room for reform and efficiency gains. In 2026, the central questions will be whether the transfer to USDA happens, how much of the program moves, and whether emergency response capacity is preserved in the process. For many advocates, the calculus is uneasy but pragmatic: if Food for Peace at USDA is the only option, some aid may be better than none. 3. Multilateral development banks step up As bilateral aid contracts, multilateral development banks are under growing pressure to do more on food systems. The World Bank has pledged in 2024 to double its investment in agribusiness and agri-finance to $9 billion a year, and in October, formally launched AgriConnect to operationalize that commitment. The initiative aims to raise smallholder productivity, link farmers to structured value chains, and reduce the risks that force farmers to sell land due to lack of credit, insurance, or market access. AgriConnect is also a test of a broader strategy: closer coordination across the World Bank’s public and private arms, including International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Finance Corporation, and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency; and deeper collaboration with other institutions such as International Fund for Agricultural Development, the African Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. In Asia, the Asian Development Bank has gone even further. ADB has announced it will expand food and nutrition security investments to $40 billion between 2022 and 2030, including $26 billion for the 2025–2030 period. Of that, $18.5 billion will support governments, and $7.5 billion will go to private sector investments. Philanthropy is also stepping up. The Gates Foundation has pledged $1.4 billion to support smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia as they face the devastating effects of climate change. Whether these commitments translate into measurable impact and whether MDBs can crowd in private capital at scale will be a defining test in 2026. 4. Innovation under pressure With less money in the system, innovation is no longer optional. Artificial intelligence is increasingly framed as a tool to stretch scarce resources, from boosting crop yields and improving soil management to reducing food waste and improving nutrition in processed foods. “Used well, these technologies allow us to do more with less, protect livelihoods, and target support where it matters most,” Bechdol said. Bill Gates has argued that AI could transform African agriculture by giving farmers tailored advice, better soil data, and improved access to seeds and livestock. “The opportunity for that sector is to more than overcome those headwinds and turn this into the primary area of economic growth and make Africa not only self-sufficient to help solve some of the malnutrition problems but also a significant net food exporter,” Gates said at the Doha Forum 2025 in December. AI is also moving into food manufacturing. Mohamed Badaoui Najjar, senior director of R&D digital transformation and global specifications at PepsiCo, has said smart and AI tools are already being used to guide ingredient substitutions and help companies meet specific nutritional targets more efficiently. Still, many health advocates argue that Big Food companies are doing nowhere near enough to reduce the harms of ultra-processed foods. “Artificial intelligence, digital finance, and climate-smart technologies can be powerful accelerators, but only when they strengthen local capacity, unlock markets, and crowd in investment rather than create dependency,” AGRA’s Ruhweza said. In 2026, the question will be less about whether AI can work and more about who controls it, who benefits, and whether it reaches farmers and consumers at scale rather than remaining concentrated in large firms. 5. A triple COP year puts food systems back on the global stage Food systems will be tested diplomatically as well as economically in 2026, which is set to be a “triple COP” year — with meetings set for all three major United Nations environmental treaties. Multilateral negotiations begin with the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in August, followed by the biodiversity COP in Armenia in October. The climate COP, or COP31, is set to take place in Turkey in November, with Australia acting as the gathering’s president in an unusual arrangement. At the last UNCCD COP in 2024, delegates warned that 40% of the world’s agricultural land is already degraded, and more than three-quarters of land is experiencing drier conditions. Regenerative agriculture was positioned as a key solution, with estimates suggesting that restoring 150 million hectares could generate $85 billion in economic benefits and improve food security for nearly 200 million people. The biodiversity COP will revisit unresolved questions around the Cali Fund, a voluntary mechanism launched in 2025 that asks companies using digital sequencing information from plants and animals to share benefits with countries of origin. Despite its significance for seed and livestock research, the fund has yet to secure commitments from major corporations. Climate discussions will also return to food systems. At COP30 last year, food security featured more prominently than ever, driven largely by Brazil, but concrete action lagged behind rhetoric. The Belém Declaration on hunger, poverty, and human-centered climate action — a key COP30 outcome — set ambitions to support small-scale farmers and make social protection a foundation of climate plans. Whether those ambitions translate into concrete policy and financing may become clearer in the year ahead.