World Food Day was proclaimed in 1979 by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This holiday is celebrated annually on the day of FAO’s founding – 16 October 1945.
The goal of World Food Day is to raise public awareness of the global food problem and strengthen solidarity in the fight against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. The World Summit on Food Security, or Summit Against Hunger, held in November 2009, adopted a declaration reaffirming the World Food Summit’s commitment to eradicate hunger forever.
The Declaration also calls for increased domestic and international financing of agriculture, new investment in the agricultural sector, improved overall governance in tackling global food security challenges in partnership with relevant public and private sector stakeholders, and proactively addressing food security challenges posed by climate change.
Today, the scale of the problem of providing the population with food is striking. But the average statistics on the number of hungry people are still inaccurate. The reason for this is the very large number of countries, as well as the difficulties connected with collecting statistical data in states affected by war. In addition, the global pandemic of the coronavirus COVID-19, which began in 2020, complicates the collection of information.
According to FAO, only 40% of the world’s inhabitants receive adequate nutrition. This situation was formed due to several key factors, i.e. poor ecology, the specifics of the economy of the third world countries, high population growth rates and urbanization.
Today, approximately 821 million people worldwide still suffer from hunger, despite the fact that enough food is produced to feed everyone.
The Ombudsman calls on citizens to be attentive to the problem of hunger, to participate in campaigns aimed at supporting the hungry, as well as to take a responsible attitude to food consumption, because 672 million of the world’s population suffer from obesity and everywhere the rate of concomitant diseases among adults is growing at an accelerated pace. Take care of those in need and don’t forget about your health!
