New Delhi, April 9 -- We live in a highly globalised food system. If one tracks the food they consume in a day, they will find the items to be sourced from at least two or three countries. Our food basket is extremely multinational, though we might not be aware of it. More than a fifth of the food produced in the world is globally traded. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says global food trade was worth US $2 trillion in 2023, four times the 2000 levels. In 2015, close to 80 per cent of the world population lived in net food-importing countries; the number would have gone up this year. Another study says that by 2050, half of the world population will consume calories produced outside their respective countries.

While food cultur...