ROMA — The world must prepare for further shocks to the food sector, warns the United Nations in a new report.

Compared to other economic sectors, agriculture is particularly exposed to dangers such as climate change, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) wrote in the report published in Rome on Tuesday.

The food system must therefore become more resilient from a biological and socio-economic perspective in order to ensure that millions of people can continue to be fed, said dpa international.

An estimated 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet today, the FAO authors added. A billion more could be added if a shock to the economic system reduced their income by a third.

In the event of disruptions to the food system, such as extreme weather events or animal and plant diseases, there is also the threat of rising prices. Developing and emerging countries are particularly at risk.

"The pandemic highlighted both the resilience and the weakness of our agrifood systems," said FAO director general Qu Dongyu.

Even before Covid-19, the UN agency felt the world was not on track to meet its pledge to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.

The experts recommended that countries expand the network of their food systems so that they can better compensate for setbacks. They should also support small and medium-sized enterprises in the food chain.

According to the data, 11 billion tons of food is produced annually in the global food system, that is in the production, storage, processing, transport, distribution and consumption of food. According to the FAO, billions of people are directly or indirectly employed in the sector.