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FAO warns rising animal diseases now a direct threat to global food security
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Tuesday, 02 December, 2025, 13 : 00 PM [IST]
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Rome, Italy
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Global food security is under severe threat as transboundary animal diseases (TADs) highly contagious infections that can spread across countries escalate across continents. On 28 November 2025, FAO’s Director-General Qu Dongyu urged nations worldwide to strengthen global partnerships and commit sustainable funding to fight the rising wave of animal-disease outbreaks.
Addressing a session on the new global partnership programme for Transboundary Animal Diseases (GPP-TAD) at FAO headquarters in Rome, Qu warned that recent funding cuts could unravel decades of progress just when global risk is escalating. FAO’s own operational arm, Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD), has supported over 50 countries for more than 20 years, showing time and again that prevention is far less costly than crisis-response.
TADs including the lethal African swine fever, Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD), and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza spread rapidly, particularly as animals, humans, and trade networks become more interconnected. Over recent years, outbreaks have crossed borders with alarming frequency.
The stakes are massive. The global farmed animal sector, valued at around USD 1.6–3.3 trillion, could face annual livestock losses ranging from USD 48 to 330 billion. Aquaculture an increasingly important source of food faces an additional USD 10 billion loss each year. For perspective, in regions where FMD is endemic, losses from outbreaks and vaccination costs alone are pegged at approximately USD 21 billion annually.
Impact goes beyond economics. TADs can decimate food production, disrupt trade, undermine livelihoods of smallholder farmers and rural communities, and reverse years of development gains sometimes within days. Food safety, nutrition, and incomes all hang in the balance.
In response, FAO proposes GPP-TAD a new, sustainable global framework grounded in shared responsibility. The plan calls for innovative partnerships, country-led action, and broad engagement with governments, regional bodies, private sector players, financial institutions and philanthropic partners. Under a tiered funding model, wealthier countries would contribute base funding, middle-income nations would provide moderate financial or in-kind support, and lower-income countries would contribute in kind, backed by solidarity funds and tailored aid.
“No country can manage these diseases alone,” Qu emphasized. The new programme aims to fortify animal-health systems, reduce outbreaks, safeguard trade and livelihoods and secure the future of global food production.
As demand for livestock and aquaculture products grows worldwide, and nearly 1.9 billion people’s livelihoods depend on these sectors, the warning from FAO could not be more urgent. The time to act is now before the next crisis strikes.
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