World Food Day: multi-pronged approach needed to fight global hunger
16 October 2011
In developed countries that are suffering increases in
non-communicable/ chronic diseases as a result of poor diet and
sedentary lifestyle, it is often forgotten that for many of the world's
poorest countries the biggest factor in poor health is lack of food.
To mark World Food Day 2011, Worldwatch's Nourishing the Planet team
emphasizes the need for innovative hunger-fighting initiatives at
all levels. "A billion people can't get enough to eat for normal
health while a different billion people threaten their health by
overeating," said Robert Engelman, Worldwatch's President.
The volatility of food prices, in particular price upswings,
represents a major threat to food security in developing countries
and typically affects poor populations the hardest. According to the
World Bank, during 2010-11 rising food costs pushed nearly 70
million people worldwide into extreme poverty.
"Food
prices have continued to rise since 2007, and this has led to
millions of people being unable to meet their daily food needs. The
price hikes, unfortunately, also have meant that there is less money
for food aid at a time when it is most vital," said Danielle
Nierenberg, director of Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet
project, an evaluation of environmentally sustainable agricultural
innovations to alleviate hunger.
World Food Day is a global
event designed to increase awareness and understanding and to create
year-round action to alleviate hunger. Since 1981, the event has
been observed on October 16 in recognition of the founding of the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a
specialized agency that was established in Quebec City, Canada, in
1945. This year's World Food Day theme is "Food prices — crisis to
stability," with the purpose of shedding some light on this trend
and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.
Since the inception of World Food Day, organizations have taken
advantage of the occasion to inform the public about what they can
do to help end world hunger. Although the number of undernourished
people worldwide has decreased since 2009, to nearly 1 billion, it
is still unacceptably high. According to a recent FAO report, in
Africa alone, nearly one-third of the population is undernourished
and one child dies every six seconds because of the problem.
"There's something wrong with a world in which a billion people
can't get enough to eat for normal health while a different billion
people threaten their health by overeating," said Robert Engelman,
Worldwatch's President. "World Food Day is day for thinking hard
about how to see the problem of access to nutritious food whole, as
a shared global responsibility for us all."
On October 16
of this year, countries, organizations, and communities are
organizing events to educate and raise awareness, with the aim of
addressing widespread problems in food supply and distribution
systems. These events are raising money to support projects that
focus on initiatives such as measures to ease population growth,
boost incomes, and prepare farmers to protect their harvests against
the negative effects of climate change, among others.
Throughout the world, organizations and governments are developing
and implementing various plans to stabilize food prices and ensure
that there is food on every table. Here are just a few examples:
India: The government is in the process of
enacting a food security act that would provide food for nearly
70 percent of the population, specifically targeting the poor,
who are often not counted in state surveys and who are denied
many benefits;
Armenia: The government is enacting a
sustainable development program that invests in infrastructure
improvements, makes financial services and credit available to
farmers, encourages the environmentally sustainable use of
natural resources, and ensures food safety by improving food
standards;
Telefood: Launched in 1997 by the FAO,
Telefood funds micro projects that help small-scale farmers at
the grassroots level. The projects aim to help farmers be more
productive and to improve both local communities' access to food
and farmers' access to cash income. Telefood is involved in 130
countries worldwide;
World Food Programme: The WFP operates in
74 countries and is the world's largest humanitarian agency
fighting hunger. Currently, the Horn of Africa is suffering from
the worst drought in 60 years, and 4 million people are in
crisis in Somalia, with 750,000 people at risk of death in the
next four months. WFP is providing food assistance to nearly 1
million people in Somalia and will scale up its operations
during the coming months to reach some 1.9 million people;
Hunger Free World: This Japanese NGO was
formalized in 2000 with the goal of ending hunger and poverty
through education and awareness around the world. The group
supports local initiatives and young volunteers, organizes
information programs, and joins forces with national and
international networks to make these issues a priority for both
citizens and politicians;
Trussell Trust: This charity works to
empower local communities to combat poverty and exclusion in the
United Kingdom and Bulgaria. Last year, the group's UK food bank
network fed more than 60,000 hungry people.
There is no single solution to end world hunger, and these are just
a few of the organizations that are taking the multi-pronged
approach that is necessary to address this global problem. World
Food Day is the perfect occasion for researchers, policymakers, and
NGOs to reflect on the existing efforts as well as potential future
initiatives that can help fight global hunger and malnutrition.
More information
1. Worldwatch's
Nourishing the Planet project: recently traveled to 25 countries
across sub-Saharan Africa, shining a spotlight on communities that
serve as models for a more sustainable future. The project is
unearthing innovations in agriculture that can help alleviate hunger
and poverty while also protecting the environment. These innovations
are elaborated in the recently released State of the World 2011:
Innovations that Nourish the Planet.
State of the
World 2011 is accompanied by informational materials including
briefing documents, summaries, an innovations database, videos, and
podcasts. The project's findings are being disseminated to a wide
range of agricultural stakeholders, including government ministries,
policymakers, farmers and community networks, as well as to the
increasingly influential nongovernmental environmental and
development communities.