ADB hits $14 billion food security goal and scales up to $40 billion by 2030

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has surpassed its $14 billion food security commitment for 2022–2025, reaching 62 million farmers and creating over 500,000 jobs across Asia and the Pacific, as reported in an official statement published by the ADB. Speaking at the Asia and the Pacific Food Systems Forum 2026, ADB President Masato Kanda announced the Bank is now scaling up to a $40 billion agenda through 2030 — with $26 billion in additional financing already committed for 2026–2030. The shift marks a deliberate move from isolated agricultural interventions toward integrated food systems transformation across the entire region.

The numbers behind the new agenda reflect both the scale of the opportunity and the urgency of the challenge. ADB’s investment programs earmark up to $8 billion for Southeast Asia, $7 billion for South Asia, $3.5 billion for Central and West Asia, and $7.5 billion in private sector operations — with a target of reaching more than 190 million smallholder farmers by 2030.

The forum produced a series of concrete partnerships. President Kanda witnessed the signing of cooperation agreements between ADB and the World Food Programme on integrating nutrition into food systems, and between ADB and Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. ADB also signed a memorandum of understanding with the AIM for Scale Initiative — backed by the Gates Foundation and the UAE — to advance weather and digital advisory services for farmers and herders, and announced a coordinated approach with the World Bank to support agribusiness in Papua New Guinea.

National transformation platforms are central to the strategy, including the Indonesia Food Systems Investment Platform, the Philippines Agribusiness Investment Vehicle, and the India Rural Prosperity and Resilience Program — each designed to channel investment into specific country contexts at scale.

The overarching ambition, as Kanda put it, is food systems that “nourish people, protect nature, and generate inclusive rural growth and employment” — a framing that positions food security not as a humanitarian safety net, but as a driver of long-term economic transformation across one of the world’s most food-dependent regions.