On World Food Day, Think of Those Who Don't Have Any

by Katherine Gustafson · 2009-10-16 06:00:00 UTC
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It’s World Food Day! This could be the national holiday of food.change.org. Not only that, but this day sits in the midst of World Food Week! Everybody get out your party hats.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), however, makes it clear this isn’t a balloons-and-streamers kind of event. Its purpose is to raise awareness of and motivate year-round action against hunger.

“The crisis is stalking the small-scale farms and rural areas of the world,” the FOA's World Food Day Website intones, “where 70 percent of the world's hungry live and work.”

Still, this is just up our alley. “Sustainable food” systems are by definition those that can produce food for all, forever. Hungry people are not sustainable. The riots brought on by high food prices last year should show you that.

The FAO estimates that with an increase of 105 million hungry people added in 2009 to the world’s 1.02 billion malnourished people, one sixth of all humanity suffers from hunger.

What we need is big public and private investments, particularly “targeted public investment to encourage and facilitate private investment, especially by farmers themselves,” the FAO says. Hopefully world leaders will make progress on that front at the World Summit on Food Security planned for November 2009.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. While you’re busy studiously considering the dark depths of the hunger in the world, you can also head to some of the related events around the globe to discuss the issue with others who want to work for change.

Photo courtesy of luigi morante on flickr

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations.
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