The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is calling for urgent funding for emergency agricultural assistance across Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, where more than 45 million people face crisis-level hunger or worse. Conflict and economic shocks are undermining the region's food productive capacity while destroying agricultural infrastructure and disrupting markets, the agency warned.
FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol, alongside Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa AbdulHakim Elwaer and Director of the FAO Office of Emergencies and Resilience Rein Paulsen, met with governments, donors, and partners to stress agriculture's critical role in preventing food insecurity from worsening. "Repeated shocks are stripping families of their ability to produce food and earn an income—just as humanitarian resources are becoming increasingly constrained," Bechdol said. "We must act before those losses become irreversible."
The funding gaps across the five countries are stark. In Yemen, FAO has secured less than 1 percent of the $87.9 million required under its 2027 Emergency and Resilience Plan, while in Sudan, where 19.5 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity, only 23 percent of the $193 million needed under the 2026–2028 Emergency Response Plan has been funded. In Syria, around 7.2 million people were facing acute food insecurity in late 2025, with FAO requiring $171.5 million in 2027 to assist 5.2 million people. Gaza and the West Bank saw more than 1.2 million people in Crisis or worse between April and June 2026, with FAO seeking $140.9 million in 2027. In Lebanon, 1.24 million people are projected to face Crisis or worse between April and August 2026, and FAO requires $38 million to reach 35 000 conflict-affected farmers and rural households.
A delegation visit to Lebanon's Nabatieh district found more than 22 percent of the country's agricultural land reportedly damaged, with approximately 50 percent of agricultural land in South and Nabatieh inaccessible. More than one million people were displaced following the March 2026 escalation, mainly from rural areas. "In southern Lebanon, we saw what conflict means for agriculture – damaged farmland, irrigation systems and productive infrastructure, and farmers who have lost the means to produce and earn an income," Bechdol said.
Elwaer underlined the importance of timing: "When a farmer receives seed before the planting season, or a livestock keeper receives feed and veterinary support before animals are lost, we are protecting food today and the means to produce it tomorrow. But this only works if resources arrive in time."
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