World Food Day: Sunday, October 16th

World Food Day: Sunday, October 16th

The National Catholic Rural Life Conference reminds our members that October 16 is the annual recognition of World Food Day. Please take a moment to look over the following websites and see how you can learn more about food and hunger issues – and how to stay involved in resolving the problems of hunger and poverty.


World Food Day USA
www.worldfooddayusa.org

Many different opportunities exist to get involved in World Food Day. Getting started is simple:
_ Learn more. Hunger is a multi-faceted problem, so there are many different ways to get to solutions.
_ Find out what is being done at different levels to provide food security for all. Many national organizations have local chapters or offices in your area. Contact them for additional information or ideas.
_ Talk with others about the issue of hunger and think of ways that you can involve the people your local community.
_ Visit www.worldfooddayusa.org/CMS/Resources.aspx for a sampling of resources available and some ideas for organizing a WFD activity in your own area.


World Hunger Year (WHY)
www.worldhungeryear.orgg
"Innovative solutions to hunger and poverty…"

Founded in 1975, WHY is a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world. WHY is convinced that solutions to hunger and poverty can be found at the grassroots level. WHY advances long-term solutions to hunger and poverty by supporting community-based organizations that empower individuals and build self-reliance, i.e., offering job training, education and after school programs; increasing access to housing and healthcare; providing microcredit and entrepreneurial opportunities; teaching people to grow their own food; and assisting small farmers. WHY connects these organizations to funders, media and legislators.

WHY envisions a world without hunger and poverty. If we can shift the prevailing viewpoint on why hunger and poverty exist, then we can influence the policymakers and put an end to this human tragedy.

WHY sponsors two major fundraisers each year. Hungerthon is WHY’s largest annual public outreach. It is broadcast during Thanksgiving Week to more than 6 million people with essential information about hunger and poverty. At the WHY Awards Dinner each spring, they honor excellence in grassroots organizations and the media with cash grants.

Be sure to see this site’s Information Center at: www.foodsecurity.org


UN-FAO World Food Day theme for 2005: "Agriculture and Intercultural Dialogue" (www.worldhungeryear.org/info_center/default.asp)

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on October 16, the day on which FAO was founded in 1945. The World Food Day and TeleFood theme for 2005, "Agriculture and Intercultural Dialogue", recalls the contribution of different cultures to world agriculture and argues that sincere intercultural dialogue is a precondition for progress against hunger and environmental degradation.

The history of agriculture is full of examples of important intercultural exchanges. The first archeological record of farming in Europe shows advanced tool technology, but provides no evidence of simpler tools. One theory is that peoples from the Middle East brought their tools and technologies to Europe. Similar movements of farming peoples are thought to have occurred in Africa, Central and South America, China, India and Southeast Asia. Why did they move? Agriculture provided a more dependable source of food, causing populations to increase; eventually excess population migrated to new lands.

Throughout history, the intercultural movement of crops and livestock breeds revolutionized diets and reduced poverty. For example, the introduction of the potato, which can be grown quickly and economically, to northern Europe from South America in the sixteenth century helped free the masses from age-old hunger. Maize, which is originally from the Americas, now feeds much of Africa. Europe and Africa contributed their plants to the Americas, including coffee, grapes and wheat. The introduction of the camel to Africa from Arabia allowed people to live and travel in more extreme environments and contributed protein from meat and milk to diets.

But intercultural dialogue is more than transferring technologies, seeds and breeds. Many cultures, especially those in which the principal activity is agriculture, have profound religious beliefs, values and rituals concerning food and the environment. Lessons are there to be learned by other cultures that are striving to feed growing populations while sustaining the resource base on which future generations will depend for sustenance.

Intercultural dialogue in the broadest sense occurs every time people from different cultures meet and listen to each other’s point of view. With agriculture, it takes place at meetings and trade negotiations and every time an expert from one culture shows another something new in the laboratory or field – and gets feedback on its appropriateness in the local setting.

Intercultural dialogue between developing countries facing similar food and agriculture problems makes perfect sense. South-south cooperation in the form of sharing of expertise and technologies has resulted in the transfer of many solutions suited to local conditions.

Open-minded dialogue is important between different cultures in the same country. Indigenous peoples have highly evolved systems, often based on gender, for managing livestock and crop genetic resources. Government planners and policy makers sometimes overlook this traditional knowledge. The two groups should listen to each other so that policies and programs integrate the best of the new with the best of tradition.

For thousands of years, farmers, particularly in developing countries, have developed the crop and animal genetic diversity on which food security everywhere depends. Dialogue between rich and poor countries in the form of negotiations on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture led to the recognition of farmers’ rights and the establishment of a multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing.

At the international level, many societies feel threatened by one form of intercultural dialogue: world trade. Poor farmers cannot compete in an international market place if their goods are shut out of richer countries, while subsidized farm produce from industrialized countries is sold at or even below production cost in poor countries. Many developing countries want to produce for export purposes, but will not reach their full potential until further dialogue among nations leads to a fairer trading system.

More than 850 million people around the world remain hungry. At the World Food Summit held in Rome in 1996 and again at the World Food Summit: Five Years Later in 2002, leaders vowed to reduce that number by half by 2015. Moreover, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals commit world leaders to reducing by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, while ensuring environmental sustainability.

Many international initiatives and civil society networks, such as the International Alliance Against Hunger, are promoting intercultural dialogue to help achieve these goals. World Food Day provides an opportunity at the local, national and international levels to further dialogue and enhance solidarity. Human and cultural ingenuity, the right vision, partnerships and support – including that of FAO and the international community – can surely lead to progress in achieving food security for all.

Message of the FAO Director-General for World Food Day 2005: www.fao.org/wfd/2005/dgmessage.asp