What are current food security and starvation rates in Venezuela as of 2025?
Executive summary
As of 2025, Venezuela’s food-security picture is mixed: large-scale chronic food insecurity and acute needs persist for millions, even as some indicators point to partial recovery from the catastrophic shocks of 2016–2019; international agencies estimate between roughly 4–5 million people urgently need food assistance while roughly 40 percent of the population experiences moderate-to-severe food insecurity (WFP) [1], and the UN/FAO regional reporting put the national hunger prevalence near 17.6 percent in recent UN data cited in 2025 coverage [2]. Major monitoring systems flag both progress in availability due to informal dollarization and private-sector activity and enduring gaps in affordability, nutrition and surveillance that make precise starvation-rate estimates difficult (USDA; WFP; OHCHR) [3] [4] [5].
1. The headline numbers: who is counted as “hungry” and what agencies report
International actors offer different but overlapping snapshots: the World Food Programme reports about 15 percent of Venezuelans — roughly 4 million people — are in urgent need of food assistance and that about 40 percent face moderate to severe food insecurity [1], while reporting cited from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in media coverage placed hunger prevalence at about 17.6 percent and estimated some five million people “going hungry” in early 2025 [2], reflecting methodological and definitional differences between assessments and windows of analysis [2] [1].
2. Signs of partial recovery — availability improved, affordability remains the choke point
Multiple technical assessments indicate food availability has improved from the nadir in 2019 due to informal dollarization of the economy, lower inflation relative to hyperinflation years, and a rebound in private-sector imports and production — yet availability gains have not eliminated deficits in specific food groups (notably animal protein) and affordability remains the dominant barrier to access (USDA, FAS) [3] [6]. Bread for the World and other analysts note inflation pressures continued into 2025 (projected around 150 percent in some estimates), keeping prices volatile and household purchasing power weak [7].
3. Nutrition outcomes and gaps in measurement: malnutrition without reliable national surveys
Research and humanitarian actors warn that malnutrition — especially child stunting and acute malnutrition during earlier crisis years — remains a concern, but comprehensive, representative nutrition surveys are limited; academic reviews and past UN reports documented sharp rises in undernourishment through 2018, and WHO/UNICEF partners and NGOs continue to find pockets of serious child malnutrition while UNICEF’s 2025 humanitarian reporting highlights ongoing underfunded nutrition programming [8] [9] [10]. The absence of up-to-date, nationally representative SMART nutrition surveys in many states impedes definitive, nationwide “starvation rate” calculations [9].
4. Drivers: economic collapse, sanctions debate, and climate risks
The collapse of the oil-dependent economy, years of hyperinflation and loss of incomes are core drivers of food insecurity [7] [9]; the UN special rapporteur on the right to food highlighted that roughly 82 percent live in poverty and 53 percent in extreme poverty with incomes insufficient to meet needs and urged addressing structural causes rather than charity alone, while noting sanctions as one among multiple constraining factors [5]. Climate variability, drought and infrastructure constraints (including power and logistics) are incremental pressures on production and distribution [7] [4].
5. Humanitarian response, politics and hidden agendas
WFP and partners scaled up operations and school-meal programmes and have negotiated operational access within Venezuela, yet appeals remain underfunded and subject to political sensitivities; UNICEF reported a large funding shortfall for 2025 programming [1] [10] [4]. Governments, international NGOs and Venezuelan authorities frame needs differently — some emphasize sovereignty and reject external aid under certain conditions, others press for sanction relief — revealing competing agendas that shape both assistance flows and public narratives [5] [4].
6. Verdict and limits: starvation versus widespread food insecurity
Available evidence for 2025 supports the conclusion that Venezuela is not experiencing a generalized famine by most technical definitions, but it is suffering persistent, large-scale food insecurity with millions facing urgent needs and significant malnutrition risks in some populations; headline estimates cluster around 4–5 million people requiring urgent assistance and about 40 percent in moderate-to-severe food insecurity, even as measurement gaps and differing methodologies produce variance across reports [1] [2] [3] [9]. Where reporting is thin — notably recent, representative nutrition surveys at national and subnational levels — definitive estimates of starvation or mortality attributable solely to hunger cannot be robustly quantified from the sources available [9].