Sunday, October 16th was World Food Day, a day to reflect on the fact that almost 800 million people remain chronically hungry in a world where food production is at all-time highs. In honor of the occasion, we have just published an update on progress in ending the rural component of global hunger. We wanted to see if there is evidence yet for a potential break from business-as-usual global trends. Unfortunately, we were not able to find it. If anything the pace of progress might be slowing rather than accelerating.

The most recent Food and Agriculture Organization estimates suggest that, despite a small drop in the percentage of people undernourished, the effects of population growth mean that there were only 3 million fewer hungry people in 2015 than in 2014. Ending hunger by 2030—the target agreed under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2—would require a decline by around 50 million people per year. The same basic pattern holds for malnutrition. The World Health Organization estimates global malnutrition dropped by 0.6 percentage points in 2015; but for malnutrition to be eliminated by 2030 it has to drop by 1.7 percentage points per year.

There have been some hopeful signs—the number of family farmers with access to a bank account has surely gone up given the rapid increase in global financial inclusion that is being reported. Agreements to eliminate agricultural export subsidies are also good steps to removing distortions in global trade in agriculture. But these are unlikely to be game changers in and of themselves.