World Food Day

World Food Day or Welthungertag takes place every year on 16 October and intended to draw attention to the fact that over a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger.

History

October 16th was chosen as the date because on October 16, 1945, the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO, with the task of ensuring global food, was established as a specialized agency of the UN.

The World Food Day was introduced in 1979. Since then he has held every year in different countries. In addition to official meetings on that day, that deal with the issues of world hunger and food security, NGOs also often take advantage of the World Food Day, to draw attention to the global problem of hunger.

Statistics

Currently, more than 923 million people around the world are not supplied with sufficient food and clean drinking water. Each day, about 24,000 people from hunger and its consequences, about 18,000 of whom are children under 5 years. (Source: FAO, UNICEF)

Topics

The theme in 2004 included the importance of biodiversity in terms of ensuring the available food sources. 2007 was the theme of the right to food - is not a utopia. 2008 was themed world food security: the challenges of climate change and bioenergy.