It is a sad irony that the country where gastronomy is the main source of pride of its citizens – 48% answered that in a survey conducted by Ipsos Peru in July 2025 – today faces the worst levels of hunger in the last 15 years, according to the Global Hunger Index 2025 (GHI) recently presented by the Alliance2015 network.
According to the experts of this alliance made up of the Ayuda en Acción Foundation, HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation and Welthungerhilfe, inflationary pressure, the economic recession added to the political, social and environmental instability that our country has faced, especially in the last four years, has led Peru to obtain a score of 18.8, located on the border between what the GHI considers “moderate” and “serious”, and that in the national context it can only be compared to the levels achieved at the beginning of the last decade.
In that sense, currently the regions with the most alarming indicators of hunger in the country are Pasco, Huancavelica, Loreto, Arequipa, La Libertad, Cajamarca, Puno and Huánuco.
However, 16 other departments maintain moderate levels of hunger while Ica stands out for being the only one that registers low levels of hunger.
The report shows that the recovery after the pandemic is equally complicated for both urban and rural areas, in the first the index barely reduced from 18.9 to 18 from 2023 to 2024, while in the second it remains practically stagnant with 20.8 and 20.7 in the same years. Another factor that has been alarming is the deterioration of the situation in the coastal area of the country. Metropolitan Lima, for its part, presented an index higher than that of the jungle and other coastal territories.
Does this mean that Peru has officially lost the battle to meet the goal of Zero Hunger by 2030? For the Welthungerhilfe representative for Peru and Bolivia, Lucas Dourojeanni, “the projections warn that if we continue like this, the goal of zero hunger will not be met by that date, but there is still room to reverse this trend.”
Dourojeanni specifies that the will and commitment of authorities at all levels of government is necessary because “it is crucial to understand hunger as a structural and systemic problem, which is not only reduced to a lack of food. Eradicating it requires developing public state policies that prioritize the reduction of gaps in health, education, basic infrastructure (such as access to drinking water), as well as the promotion and revaluation of family farming and agroecology.”
If there is a message that the GHI 2025 has made especially clear regarding Peru, it is that in the country the problem does not originate from shortages but from the inability to distribute. There is no shortage of food in the country, but a large sector of the population has serious difficulties in accessing it. The same thing happens from the side of the often celebrated economic growth that has been unable to translate into a real reduction in the food vulnerability of Peruvians.
“The first failure is the disconnection between economic growth at the macro level and the economic development of the people. On the other hand, the Peruvian state is currently suffering a process of institutional weakening that translates into an inability to provide basic services fully and effectively. Finally, Peru has neglected the strengthening of family farming and local food systems intended for domestic consumption. As a result, small producers face high vulnerability to increased input prices, climate variability and external crises, in addition to structural limitations in infrastructure, access to markets and technical assistance.” lists Dourojeanni.
Regarding the latter, the report also warns that aging and the migration of young people from rural areas to urban areas represent a risk for family farming, which “provides between 60 to 70% of the food in Peruvian homes,” it details. The Commerce Richard Haep, director of Helvetas Peru.
“Losing family farming is not an option, its role cannot be covered by agribusiness or imports. There is no simple answer, but in any case it requires political will, not words but intelligent actions and budget allocation. Perhaps family farming does not seem reflected in the GDP as it should, but its role for the development of the country is enormous,” highlights Haep.
The representative of Helvetas Perú assures that “the State has shown that it cannot do it alone” and considers the participation of the private sector, academia, communities and their social organizations to be essential. However, it highlights that “no social organization or the private sector can replace the role of the State, its regulatory and redistributive role, but above all its role of being the guarantor of the rights of citizens, it must fulfill in the best possible way.”
In this context, the Alliance2015 network has projected three impact scenarios (mild, moderate and severe) of the economic situation on the GHI at the national and subnational level. If the economy remains stable, it will not be enough to reverse the food crisis facing the country. In a pessimistic scenario (severe impact), the GHI would go from 18.8 (2024) to 18.7 points, in a moderate scenario to 18.6 and optimistic to 18.4. In all cases, the level of hunger in 2025 would remain among the highest since 2010 (18.8).
This, at the same time, translates into alarming levels of malnutrition and anemia. To date, 43.7% of children between 6 and 35 months of age suffer from childhood anemia nationwide, while malnutrition affects 12.1% of children under 5 years of age, according to the latest Demographic and Family Health Survey (ENDES) of the INEI.
– The effects of El Niño –
In its latest statement, the Multisector Commission in charge of the National Study of the “El Niño” Phenomenon (ENFEN) maintained the state of alert for the Coastal El Niño, estimating that the phenomenon will persist until January 2027. And although specialists predict that it will persist at a weak magnitude, they do not rule out that it reaches a moderate level between June and July.
This could have a special impact on the coast, which according to the GHI 2025 for the first time reached the same levels of hunger as the mountains and the jungle. This is because “the problem is not only one of production, but of access to nutritious food and food: in coastal cities, malnutrition coexists with overweight and obesity. The State must close the basic gaps in access to drinking water and sanitation, as well as address postponed infrastructure works, so that access to food is not a constant struggle for families. In summary, institutional stability, income protection, health and nutrition policies, basic infrastructure and strengthening of systems are required. local food products to reduce structural vulnerability,” according to Dourojeanni.
Regarding El Niño Costero, Haep considers that it will undoubtedly have repercussions on the next measurements because “the eight departments whose hunger situation is considered ‘serious’ will then be the most vulnerable to a possible El Niño.” Furthermore, the expert reiterates that “hunger is not directly correlated with production, but with the income available for food. What we are observing for the first time in years is that hunger has become an urban and capital phenomenon.”
For the representative of Helvetas Peru, however, the most worrying thing is that hunger “does not seem to be a political priority: it has not been the subject of any electoral campaign in the last elections.”
