US$ 500 billion in annual agricultural subsidies must be redirected toward sustainable food systems.
While the world races toward an energy transition, another urgent shift remains off the radar: the food transition. The climate crisis directly affects plates, kitchens, food cultures, and the right of millions of people to eat with dignity. Stepping into this arena, the Forests4Food campaign, led by Ação da Cidadania, brings the message that protecting forests is protecting the right to food.
Today, more than 735 million people live in severe food insecurity worldwide, according to the FAO (2023). That means one in every eleven people goes hungry. With each new report, the curve rises—driven by armed conflicts and climate change. It is estimated that in 2022 alone, more than 148 million people were affected by climate events that directly impacted their food production or access. Drought in East Africa, historic floods in Pakistan, harvests devastated by heatwaves in Europe and South Asia, and out-of-control wildfires in Canada and Australia are just a few examples of landscapes changing alongside the hunger map.
In this context, forests become even more central as living systems that sustain food, cultures, territories, and ways of life. More than 1 billion people worldwide depend directly on forests for their food, according to the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Among them are Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and small farmers who, for generations, have produced diversity without breaking the balance of ecosystems.
Despite this, the climate game plan still runs counter to the forests. Around 10 million hectares of forest are lost every year, much of it cleared for export-oriented monocultures or the unchecked expansion of livestock. Deforestation—often illegal—destroys biodiversity, disrupts rainfall cycles, depletes soil fertility, and undermines the food security of the very regions that promote it. In the short term, the move may bring profit. But in the medium and long term, it generates hunger.
It is a contradictory cycle in which agriculture is both one of the main causes and one of the greatest victims of climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the agriculture sector is responsible for about 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions, considering land use, deforestation, and methane and nitrous oxide emissions. The FAO estimates that between 2008 and 2018, extreme climate events caused losses of over US$ 108 billion to agriculture in developing countries, mainly affecting small-scale producers and rural communities.
The dominant agricultural model—based on monocultures, intensive use of chemical inputs, and large-scale export-oriented production—exacerbates soil degradation, water scarcity, and vulnerability to the very climate collapse it helps accelerate. The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) points out that this model, built on homogenization and dependence on fossil fuels, is not only ecologically unsustainable but also extremely fragile in the face of climate and geopolitical shocks. As it stands, the global food system plays against the planet and tests its limits.
It is in this context that Ação da Cidadania created the Forests4Food campaign to influence decisions at events such as COP30, the UN Committee on World Food Security, national anti-hunger policies, and climate adaptation plans. The challenge goes beyond carbon. It is about reshaping the systems that determine who eats and who does not—and at what cost.
Protecting forests is ensuring food resilience. It means safeguarding freshwater sources, conserving pollinators, stabilizing local climates, preserving native seeds, and protecting food cultures that have resisted centuries of colonization and extractivism. It also means recognizing that the most preserved territories on the planet are under the stewardship of Indigenous peoples and local communities, who are responsible for protecting about 36% of the world’s remaining forests, despite representing only 5% of the global population. This is not about romanticizing ways of life, but about acknowledging that the knowledge accumulated by forest peoples, agroecological farmers, and traditional communities offers real answers to the multiple crises we face.
The pandemic exposed the fragility of global food chains. The war in Ukraine disrupted the grain trade. Climate crises are collapsing harvest predictability. And yet, trillions of reais are still invested in food systems that impoverish soils, deplete water resources, and concentrate power in the hands of a few corporations. Data from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) show that more than US$ 500 billion per year is invested in environmentally harmful agricultural subsidies, while agroecology, territorial food systems, and forest-based economies remain underfunded.
Hunger is a symptom of this scenario—a social thermometer of a collapsing production model. And to fight hunger, as Forests4Food proposes, we must transform the foundations of this model. A regenerative food system requires investments in local, healthy food, territorial protection, and living forests.
At COP30, the Forests4Food campaign seeks formal recognition of food security as an essential part of global climate action. The initiative calls for redirecting the more than US$ 500 billion in annual agricultural subsidies—which currently promote predatory models—toward sustainable and agroecological food systems that can protect forests and strengthen local economies. The priority is to ensure that the knowledge and experience of forest communities are considered in the formulation of public policies. After all, forests are not obstacles but living infrastructure for survival. In times of collapse, rebuilding the link between climate, forest, and food is no longer a choice. It is an urgency.