Happy World Food Day (WFD)! World Food Day was first celebrated on the 16th of Oct 1981. To celebrate World Food Day, I thought I’ll share some interesting facts I came across with you
Did you know :-)…
- WFD is celebrated annually in honour of the date in 1945 that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was founded.
- The focus of World Food Day 2014 is on the significant role that smallholder farmers play in feeding the world. In the poorest parts of Africa and Asia, around 500 million small family farms are responsible for 80% of all food production.
- The day is about recognising the worldwide problem of hunger. And this year the theme for the day is “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition”.The theme has been chosen to highlight and raise awareness of the problems worldwide and the solutions to food security and ridding the world of hunger. The day is also about raising awareness and calling for changes to our agriculture and food supply systems.
- UN food agency warned the number of starving people in the world is as high as 805 million, or one in nine, despite the overall figure falling by more than 100 million in the past decade.
- Around 70% of food-insecure people live in rural areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Near East. The majority are farmers, in particular smallholders. So why are farmers, who provide food to the world, going hungry themselves.
During my research I cam across this rather heart breaking story….Have you heard of stomach binding? Ziporra Mbungo is well acquainted with it. She ties a rope tight around her stomach so that she can stave off hunger pangs – food is scarce and she gives what little food she does have to her grandchildren. What’s even worse is that often when a person using this method does receive food they’ll remove the rope too quickly and die.
World Food Day has asked people to take a photo or create a video that depicts your appreciation, post it to social media using the hashtag #ToastAFarmer – to raise awareness of the work of farmers worldwide. You can follow all the Twitter action using #WFD2014.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world-food-day-2014-why-family-farmers-hold-key-ending-global-hunger-1470222http://www.fao.org/world-food-day/home/en/http://www.national-awareness-days.com/world-food-day.htmlhttp://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/oct/13/how-to-teach-world-food-day
