"Food systems have been shaken to the core in the last few years -cumulative shocks have reversed years of progress and exposed their weaknesses," he added.
The Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and climate change have severely impacted the global food security that has triggered a food crisis in the African countries.
AdvertisementIndia has been strongly flagging the consequences of the Ukraine conflict on the Global South, especially in areas of food, energy and fertilisers.
Ukraine has been a major global supplier of wheat and the Russian invasion of the country resulted in a global food crisis as the supplies were badly hit.
"The war in Ukraine has led to a humanitarian crisis. It has led to increasing food and fuel prices globally, which in turn is impacting the world's most vulnerable people," Lario said.
"In addition to limiting the provision of grains, it is limiting affordable access to energy and fertilisers. This has been catastrophic for the ability of small-scale farmers - who grow at least one-third of the world's food -to keep producing food and also their ability to access markets," he said.
Lario said the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine, compounded with other ongoing crises, are a reminder that there is a need to invest heavily in medium to long-term development to avoid being caught again in a similar "costly crisis".
"The key areas identified by the Indian G20 presidency for food systems transformation - ensuring global food security and nutrition; promoting climate-smart agriculture; building inclusive and pro-poor value chains; and using digital technology to create smart solutions - are the same areas IFAD is concerned about," he said.
He said at New Delhi's invitation, IFAD has supported India to strengthen its focus and share its experience on local production systems and building markets and resilience.
"It is estimated that we need between USD 300 billion to USD 350 billion per year to revamp food systems. This is not even 3 per cent of the money wasted through the inefficiencies of the current global food systems each year," Lario said.
"It is less than 0.5 per cent of the global GDP. The IFAD's expertise and long-standing partnership with governments can help make public investment more efficient, and food systems more attractive to private investors," he said.
The IFAD president also noted that small-scale farmers produce up to 70 per cent of the food consumed in low and middle-income countries and they often bear the brunt of climate change and other natural disasters.
"We need climate finance both to mitigate emissions and to help economies adapt to the change. The current pace of action is not enough to meet global commitments under the Paris Agreement.
"Between 2017 and 2018, small-scale producers received only USD 10 billion, or 1.7 per cent of climate finance.," he added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
