ADB (the Asian Development Bank) plans to increase its investments towards food and nutrition security for Asia and the Pacific region by US$26 billion, which raises their total food security funding to $40 billion from 2022 through 2030. It proposes to create an extensive program that covers every step from agricultural production through processing and distribution up to consumption with the funding announced through a news release.
The program combines financing and policy advisory for governments and companies to establish a program that promotes diverse nutritious food creation along with job development while minimizing environmental impacts and strengthening resilient supply chains in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Unprecedented droughts, floods, extreme heat, and degraded natural resources are undermining agricultural production while at the same time threatening food security and rural livelihoods. This expanded support will help countries alleviate hunger, improve diets, and protect the natural environment, while providing opportunities for farmers and agribusinesses.”
– The release, quoting the ADB President Masato Kanda.
“The support system would create fundamental changes throughout the complete food value sequence, including farming activities, handling operations, distribution methods, and customer consumption patterns.”
-The ADB head
ADB established its new ambition through its promise from September 2022 to dedicate $14 billion before 2025 for enhancing food security and addressing regional food shortages, according to the ADB announcement.
It had invested $11 billion, which amounted to about 80 percent of its initial funding allocation until the end of 2024, and had also reserved $3.3 billion for new investments in 2025.
ADB has announced an extra $26 billion through which they will provide $18.5 billion in government support and $7.5 billion for private sector investments, according to the release.
According to its plans, ADB will establish that private investments should maximize at least 27% of the comprehensive $40 billion program through 2030 to demonstrate private sector significance in food systems evolution.
The report reports that over fifty percent of undernourished people exist within developing Asia while explaining how food systems endure strain due to biodiversity loss and malnutrition alongside their consumption of seventy percent of global water usage along with fifty percent of available land and eighty percent of biodiversity loss.
Food systems use forty percent of the workforce that works in the region, according to the assessment.
The ADB release indicates that this program will bring modernity to agricultural value chains to enhance vulnerable people’s ability to get nutritious and affordable food.
The program focuses on improving soil qualities together with biodiversity management efforts to protect these essential fundamental aspects, which climate change and pollution and land and aquatic ecosystem loss now endanger sustainable agriculture.
“Through this initiative, the program will build digital capabilities to help farmers as well as agribusinesses and policymakers make decisions more efficiently.”
-The ADB head
ADB aims to create the Natural Capital Fund through $150 million in blend finance operations with Global Environment Facility backing and expected funding from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program and other partners.
Developing members of ADB will gain funding through this support mechanism for agri-food system initiatives that sustainably manage and restore their natural capital, according to the press release.