Food Glorious Food: Celebrating World Food Day
Currently, the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet millions of people continue to suffer from hunger or malnutrition. On October 16, the world celebrates World Food Day, and this year’s theme is "Leave NO ONE behind”.
Written by Victoria Kent, Senior Investment Specialist
This information does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider if the relevant investment is appropriate having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs.
"A sustainable world is a world where everyone matters" - United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation
The world celebrates World Food Day to commemorate the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA) in 1945. On October 16 every year, World Food Day adopts a different theme to highlight an area for action – this year’s theme being "Leave NO ONE behind".
Why celebrate World Food Day when food, nay, an abundance (and oftentimes excess of food), is the reality for many of us?
Currently, the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet millions of people continue to suffer from hunger or malnutrition.
Why?
Conflict, economic slowdowns and downturns, the climate emergency and environmental degradation are major drivers of food insecurity and global hunger.
A healthy diet is too expensive for 40% of the world's population. In addition, a great deal of food is also wasted or lost before it even reaches the market.
Worldwide, 75% of poor and food insecure people rely on agriculture and natural resources for their living, leaving them vulnerable to war and natural disasters.
We only need to look to Ukraine, a country known as one of the world's major breadbaskets, to see how war can affect global access to staple grains and oil seeds – causing price increases all over the world.
It won’t surprise you that the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to distribute products, and caused prices and poverty to increase in many countries.
Shockingly, global hunger is at a new high; in just two years, the number of acutely food insecure people has risen from 135 million to 193 million.
Around 750,000 people are living in famine conditions in 5 countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen) – more than five times as many as in 2020 according to the FAO and WFP Hunger Hotspots report (June 2022).
"Food prices have increased in the past year due to bottlenecks in supply chains, soaring transport costs and other disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts in a number of regions worldwide including the war in Ukraine, and the growing frequency and intensity of climate extremes." - FAO
This underscores the immense challenge of achieving the Sustainable Development Agenda, which includes zero Hunger by 2030 (SDG2: Zero Hunger).
But we are not about doom and gloom. We want you readers to take heart, have hope and read on to learn more about the wonderful work being done to "leave no one behind".
The key organisations celebrating World Food Day:
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
A specialised agency of the United Nations leading international efforts to defeat hunger. They do this by:
promoting decent rural employment and services, ensuring social protection, ending child labour, and supporting local food production for vulnerable populations in food crisis countries while;
fostering gender equality and supporting rural and Indigenous Peoples who are the custodians of much of the Earth’s biodiversity.
The World Food Program
Recipients of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, the WFP is the food-assistance branch of the UN. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization focused on hunger and food security, and the largest provider of school meals. Check out this incredible HungerMap.
The World Health Organisation
While they hardly need an introduction given the amount of airtime they've had during the pandemic, believe it or not, the WHO do more than manage global pandemics.
As the specialised agency of the UN responsible for international public health, food as it pertains to health, is also part of their remit. This includes food fortification (incorporating essential nutrients to foods – think salt fortified with iodine), nutrition and food safety, and the monitoring of genetically modified (GM) foods.
The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization collaborate on the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which develops the standards, codes of practice, guidelines and recommendations concerning food, including GM products.
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
An international financial institution (and specialised agency of the UN) working to address poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. IFAD was established to finance agricultural development projects, primarily for food production in developing countries.
They pay particular attention to the disenfranchised: women, youth and indigenous people. They do this via many including, but not limited to, the promotion of sustainable agricultural practices and financing through the Crisis Reponses Initiative.
To check out what World Food Day events are happening, or to plan an event of your own, visit: https://www.fao.org/world-food-day/events/en.
For teachers or parents keen to educate children about food systems, you can access an excellent illustrated activity book here: https://www.fao.org/3/cc0239en/cc0239en.pdf