To talk of declining hunger while famine rages is not just an anomaly—it’s a moral outrage.

The decrease in global hunger, albeit still higher than pre-pandemic figures, was highlighted in the latest State of Food Insecurity report. In 2024, an estimated 8.2% of the global population faced hunger, down from 8.5% in 2023 and 8.7% in 2022.

However, this supposed “improvement” is not just negligible; it’s eclipsed by catastrophic modern famine. Among the at least 638 million starving people reported last year are the populations of Sudan (famine declared July 2024) and Gaza (famine declared March 2025). The number of people in famine more than doubled in one year, from 705,200 to 1,949,000—a 176% spike.

The fact that the whole population of Gaza is suffering acute hunger—the famine declaration a late but undeniable recognition—is beyond imagination in a supposed modern world. We witnessed the settler colony Israel, backed by imperialist powers especially the US, wage its genocidal war to occupy Palestinian land, purposely starving Gaza and the West Bank over the past two years in the process.

And this war is not exclusive to Palestine. The US-Israel war is spilling over neighboring countries. In September, Israel bombed Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar, and Yemen in a three-day span. The US, on the other hand, is conducting its own strikes on Yemen and Iran—both known hunger hotspots.

The looming shadow of war is also intensifying in the Asia Pacific region as the US expands its military footprint to contend with China’s rise. This year alone saw at least seven multilateral joint military exercises. The largest, Talisman Sabre 2025 in Australia, involved 40,000 troops and 19 countries. Another massive show of force, Resolute Force Pacific 2025, deployed 300 to 400 aircraft across over 50 locations in the Pacific.

The US is fortifying its presence in allies like Japan and South Korea while aggressively expanding bases in strategic spots such as Guam and the Philippines. Worse, some allied governments leverage this US military support to launch their own wars against people’s movements critical of their rule, cloaked as “counter-insurgency” or “counter-terrorism.”

Military operations, intensified by imperialist interventions, harm rural communities and impede the right to food. Farming is disrupted, communities are displaced, lives are put at risk, and in some areas, rural people are forcibly starved as a deliberate tactic.

Considering that conflict is the primary driver of food crises, the current escalation means more countries are now poised to follow Sudan and Palestine to become the next hunger hotspots.

Despite the claims of declining hunger, food insecurity is qualitatively unchanged in 2024. A staggering one in four people globally remains moderately or severely food insecure. Even worse, 30% of those experiencing insecurity actually endured hunger. Asia accounts for the largest absolute number at 1.1 billion, but Africa is the hardest-hit continent: 59% of its population is food insecure.

Global food insecurity is manufactured by a neoliberal food system that is now weaponizing the climate crisis to seize our collective resources for private profit. This “green grab” racket—driven by carbon offsets and conservation schemes—now claims roughly 20% of all large-scale land deals. These initiatives are a smokescreen: they promise climate resilience while allowing the planet’s worst polluters to escape accountability. The shift toward “carbon removal” is forcibly converting vital agricultural land, displacing millions of small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, and Indigenous Peoples whose localized food systems are being destroyed in the name of green corporate greed.

We expect nothing less than the promotion of market-based solutions from the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025. The conference’s focus on new financing mechanisms, carbon accounting standards, and “sustainable” certifications will all further enable and secure green grabs by legitimizing the commodification of land under the guise of climate action—with tropical forests now to be identified as key assets. While food system transformation is nominally part of the official agenda, the meeting risks merely reinforcing the very neoliberal design that causes the problem, thus keeping land dispossession deeply embedded in the global climate governance structure.

The fisherfolk sector is gravely affected by this neoliberal assault and military aggression. On one hand, they face displacement through the privatization of productive marine territory under the guise of “blue carbon” offsets and marine conservation, on top of being sidelined as commercial fishing is aggressively prioritized. On the other, escalating conflicts in the maritime domain pollute crucial waters, destroy coastal ecosystems, and directly endanger their lives, making them immediate victims of the same forces that drive global food insecurity.

Amid this situation, rural people’s movements are enraged. The rural sector, which is indispensable in feeding the world, has now become the target of this systemic starvation. Rural communities contend with its various forms, from invasive development projects that seize their farmlands to the bombings and military offensives that destroy their agricultural resources. The profound irony is that rural areas are the most food-insecure—with a 32% prevalence rate—which exposes the systemic disregard for their voices. Consequently, rural people’s movements demand a radical food systems transformation, militantly asserting people’s food sovereignty as the necessary solution for a hunger-free and emancipated future.

Earmarked by modern famine, today’s global crisis is characterized by the systemic weaponization of hunger: in wars, as a tactic of war and genocide, and for profit, to systematically “green grab” life-sustaining resources for food production. As such, we are marking this year’s World Hunger Day on October 16 with the theme “Fury Against Famine: Advance people’s food sovereignty! Resist weaponizing hunger in wars and for profit!” In the face of genocide, imperialist-backed wars, and green grabs that are starving rural people, let us unleash our fury and direct all our energies toward radical food systems transformation and advancing people’s food sovereignty!

OBJECTIVES

We are launching this year’s World Hunger Day commemoration with the following objectives:

WAYS TO PARTICIPATE

With these objectives in mind, we call rural people of the world and their advocates to take part in this year’s World Hunger Day commemoration, which will run until the end of the year.

JOIN THE GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION ON OCTOBER 16, WORLD HUNGER DAY. Protest on-ground and online to spotlight local struggles for people’s food sovereignty; call out the imperialist machinations behind modern famine, especially the genocide of the Palestinian race; and fight for climate justice amid imperialist onslaught and wars. We ask our members and network to send us photos and videos of your activities with the hashtags #FuryAgainstFamine and #WorldHungerDay so we could share them online.

We also invite everyone to take part in the following global actions:

SUPPORT AND ENDORSE THE INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON THE US-BACKED ZIONIST OCCUPATION’S WAR OF FORCED STARVATION AND ECOCIDE IN PALESTINE.

The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine is a quasi-judicial forum convened to investigate and address alleged war crimes committed by “Israel” and its backers, namely the US, UK, France, Germany and others. It serves as a platform for victims and advocates and their organizations to present evidence and legal arguments related to the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

The Tribunal aims to hold the Zionist occupation and the US government to account for their wanton disregard of Palestinian land, environment and human lives and for crimes against humanity as enshrined in the Algiers Declaration of the Rights of Peoples and international conventions.

The Tribunal will take part from November 22 to 23 in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain) to present the testimony of witnesses and experts and deliver a verdict from a jury made up of representatives of the Palestinian people, solidarity movements, and civil society.

TAKE PART IN OUR ONGOING INITIATIVES

Across the Global South, fisherfolk are already experiencing the devastating consequences of the blue economy framework, climate crises, and wars. We call on fisherfolk, coastal communities, workers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, and allies across the world to rise together against ocean grabbing, false climate solutions, and imperialist wars. The struggle to save our fishers is the struggle to save our oceans—and this is inseparable from the fight for people’s rights, sovereignty, and peace.

With the theme “Defending lands and territories: Uniting against climate injustice and militarism,” this conference will bring together grassroots leaders, environmental defenders, people’s organizations, and advocates from across the region to strategize, share experiences, and build solidarity in the face of escalating climate and militarist threats.

The ILPS Peasant Commission Anti-Imperialist Education Discussion Series aims to provide a structured platform for internal political education and exchange. By focusing on timely and strategic international themes, the series will contribute to building a stronger political foundation among members and allied organizations. Through monthly thematic discussions from July to December, the series will help members and network examine current global trends through an anti-imperialist and peasant-centered lens. It also seeks to contribute to shaping a collective political line that responds to the lived experiences of rural peoples under imperialist aggression.

Led by the Asian Peasant Coalition and the ILPS Peasant Commission, this year’s global week of solidarity with peasants aims to amplify the voices from the world’s countryside that are affected by imperialist expansion, military occupation, state violence and resource grabbing, and the climate crisis.

CALENDAR OF ACTIVITIES