World food day is celebrated each year on October 16. World food day is an annual celebration in the honor of the founding date of the Food and Agriculture Organization launched by the United Nations in the year 1945.
World Food Day is celebrated widely with great enthusiasm by several other organizations which are concerned with food security such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Program and others.
The aim of celebrating World food day is to spread public awareness about hunger challenges as well as to encourage people to take action in the fight against hunger.
World Food Day (WFD) was created by the member countries of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) in November 1979, at the organization's 20th General Conference. Dr. Pal Romany, the Hungarian Delegation led by the then Minister of Hungary for Agriculture and Food, played a significant role at the 20th General Conference of the FAO and proposed the idea of launching the World food day (WFD) worldwide. Since then, the World food day (WFD) is been observed in more than 150 countries every year raising consciousness and knowledge of the problems and reasons behind hunger and poverty.
Main Objectives of World Food Day:
"Spread awareness and encourage all nations to fight against hunger, malnutrition and poverty
- Draw attention to agricultural development.
- Encourage agricultural food production
- Encourage cooperation among developing countries in economic and technical fields
- Encourage the contribution of rural people, mainly women and the least privileged
- Promote technology transfer to the developing countries
This year's theme of World Food Day is "Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too". Climate change has affected food security very much. Social and economic development is impossible without food security. Due to the climate change and weather related disasters around 800 million people are suffering from chronic undernourishment.
Moreover, Small-scale farmers, fishers and pastoralists are finding it very difficult to earn money as well as to produce enough food for their families.
India is a vast country with diverse culture and tradition. The tradition varies from state to state and different festivals are celebrated in different styles in each state, but food is the common element at every celebration. Varieties of food items get prepared, eaten and distributed amongst the families and friends as rituals. Marriage is also one of the most important occasions for Indians and various food items get prepared and leftover gets wasted. Such families may preserve extra food and distribute the same to the poor and needy ones this will make a lot of difference as no food would get wasted and hungry may be fed. Private companies and Government organizations may run a scheme where a certain percentage of salary get deducted from those employees who voluntarily want to donate for the food bank and such money collected may be utilized at the times of natural calamities, disasters, etc.
Some of the ways to deal with climate change:
- Use the natural resources carefully
- Never waste food, share it with those who are in need
- Plant new trees to increase the green cover
- Say no to plastics. Use re-usable shopping bags and bottles instead of plastic bags
- Go paperless, use digital technology wherever possible
- Always go for energy and water efficient appliances
- Prefer organic food
To achieve the goal of Zero Hunger by 2030, it is must to fight against climate change.