WORLD FOOD DAY OCTOBER 16, 2017

ON October 16,1945, 42 countries gathered in Quebec, Canada, to create the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). In doing so they took another important step forward in man’s perpetual struggle against hunger and malnutrition.

The FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on the day on which the Organisation was founded in 1945.

The objectives of World Food Day are to:

 Encourage attention to agricultural food production and to stimulate national, bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental efforts to this end;  Encourage economic and technical cooperation among developing countries;  Encourage the participation of rural people, particularly women and the least privileged categories, in decisions and activities influencing their living conditions;  Heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in the world;  Promote the transfer of technologies to the developing world; and  Strengthen international and national solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty and draw attention to achievements in food and agricultural development.

Increased conflict, political instability and extreme weather events have contributed greatly to making this year’s World Food Day theme “Change the future of migration”.

Graphics: un.org World Food Day theme Traders sell vegetables in an empty stocked market in Akuem, South Sudan. More than 50 per cent of the cultivation has been lost in the area due to dry spells, floods and plant diseases. Woman feeding poultry