World Food Day 2019: History, significance and theme

LAHORE -World Food Day is celebrated by several organisations which are concerned with food security like International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Program, etc.

This day generates awareness globally for those who suffer from hunger and to ensure the need for food security and nutritious diets for all. The main focus of this day is that food is a basic and fundamental human right.

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 World Food Day 2019: Theme

The theme of World Food Day 2019 is “Our Actions Are Our Future. Healthy Diets for A #ZeroHunger World". It focuses on tackling global hunger. Due to globalisation, urbanisation and income growth, our diets and eating habits are changed. Instead of seasonal, fibre rich food and plant-based food we are shifted to refined, starches, sugar, fats, salt, processed food, meat, etc.

It has been seen that in urban areas time spent on preparing food or meals is very less because people these days rely on ready mate food, supermarkets, fast food, street food, etc.

According to FAO, 670 million adults and 120 million girls and boys of the age group 5 to 18 years are obese and 40 million children under 5 are overweight. Around 820 million people suffer from hunger.

World Food Day: History

The member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organisation established World Food Day in November 1979 at the organisations 20th General Conference and called for the observance of World Food Day on 16 October 1981.

This decision was ratified by the UN General Assembly on 5 December 1980 and urged governments and international, national and local organisations to contribute to celebrating World Food Day.

World Food Day 2019: Celebrations

Various events are organised on this day. At FAO, headquarter in Rome, Italy program on large scale is organised. It mainly focuses on the attention towards food supply. Some UN Organisations and universities organise symposia, conferences, workshops, presentations on topics like food production, distribution and security.

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In some private companies and government organisations, there is a scheme in which salary is deducted from those employees who voluntarily want to donate for the food bank and the collected money may be utilised at the time of natural calamities, disasters, etc.

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It is a specialised agency of the United Nations that works towards defeating hunger via international efforts. FAO aims to achieve food security for all and to make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active healthy lives. It has 194 member states and it works in over 130 countries in the whole world.