World Food Day 16th October 2022 Theme- Leaving No One Behind
World Food Day is an annual celebration in the honor of the Food and Agriculture Organization founding date launched by the United Nations in 1945. Food Day is a global day of action that focuses on hunger issues. World Food Day is celebrated every year on 16th October across the world. This day is celebrated widely with several other organizations which are the World Food Program, Food Security, International Fund for Agriculture Development, and many others.
Theme of World Food Day 2022
This year the theme of World Food Day 2022 is Leaving No one Behind
In 2022, we’ll be dealing with a continuous pandemic, violence, an unstoppable warming environment, rising prices, and international tensions. This has a negative impact on world food security.
We must create a world where everyone, everywhere, has regular access to sufficient nourishing food. There should be no one left behind.
In a sustainable agri-food system, everyone has access to a diverse range of affordable, nutritious, and safe foods, and no one goes hungry or suffers from malnutrition in any way. The local market or food store’s shelves are full, but less food is wasted, and the food supply chain is more resilient to shocks like harsh weather, price surges, or pandemics, all while limiting environmental degradation or climate change rather than making it worse.
Sustainable agri-food systems, on the other hand, ensure food security and nutrition for future generations without jeopardizing the economy, society, or environment. Ultimately, they lead to more efficient and effective manufacturing, improved nutrition, and a healthier environment for everyone.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clear that a different approach is needed immediately. In addition to making it more difficult for farmers – who are already dealing with climatic variability and extremes – to sell their harvests, it has also worsened poverty in cities, causing an increasing number of people to need food banks. Agri-food systems that can feed 10 billion people by 2050 are needed.
In recent times, the result of urbanization, globalization, and income growth has changed our diets and eating habits dramatically. Nowadays we have changed our diet as we moved from fiber-rich dishes to highly refined sugar, fats, starch, and processed foods. We spent less time cooking food at home especially in urban areas and in this case, we only rely on restaurants, street food, supermarkets or fast food outlets.
This kind of lifestyles and unhealthy diets reached to an obesity rate not only in our developed countries but also in low-income countries where both hunger and obesity coexist. Now 120 million girls and boys (aged from 5to 19 years) and 670 million adults are under obesity. Over 40 million children under the age group of 5 are overweight while 820 million people suffer from hunger.
Purpose of World Food Day
The aim behind celebrating World Food Day is to have food security across the world especially in the crises. The initiative taken by the Food and Agriculture Organization by the United Nations has played an important role to accomplish the goal. The celebration of World Food Day helps in spreading awareness about the crucial needs of effective agriculture and food policies which are implemented by governments across the world and to make sure that there is sufficient food available for everyone.
History of World Food Day
World Food Day was established in the 20th General Conference of Food and Agriculture Organization by the members of FAO in November 1979. In the 20th session of FAO conference, Dr. Pal Romany the former Hungarian Minister of Agriculture and Food played an important role he suggested the idea of celebrating World Food Day worldwide and from then it is observed every year. More than 150 countries celebrate world food day by raising awareness about the issues behind poverty and hunger.
FAO organizing a poster competition for children and teens all over the world age group from 5 to 19 years. In this competition children and teens should use their imagination to create a poster that illustrates the idea of what should be done to make a healthy diet available to everyone and how can we improve our diet.
Swikriti Dandotia
