About World Food Day
World Food Day is celebrated every year on 16 October to commemorate the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1945. World Food Day aims to heighten public awareness of the plight of the world's hungry and malnourished and to encourage people worldwide to take action against hunger. More than 150 countries observe this event every year. In the United States, 450 national, private voluntary organizations sponsor World Food Day, and local groups are active in almost every community. First observed in 1981, each year World Food Day highlights a particular theme on which to focus activities.
Themes from recent years are:
2005 - "Agriculture and Intercultural Dialogue"
2004 - "Biodiversity and Food Security"
2003 -
"Working Together for an International
Alliance Against Hunger"
2002 - "Water: Source of Food
Security"
2001 - "Fight Hunger to Reduce Poverty"
2000 - "A Millennium Free from Hunger".
A related initiative is the TeleFood Campaign, in which television and radio broadcasts, concerts, celebrity appeals, sporting and other events pass on the message that it is time to do something about the problem of world hunger. The objective of TeleFood is to raise awareness plus mobilize resources for microprojects on food security. Donations to TeleFood support hundreds of small projects in developing countries that help poor farmers grow more food or generate income to buy enough food to feed their families. Materials for recent World Day/TeleFood themes are on the FAO Web site.
