World Food Day Celebrated worldwide on 16 October 2012

World food day 2012 is celebrated with a theme Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world

World Food Day is celebrated every year across the globe on 16 October in honour of the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945.

The aim of this World Food Day is to raise awareness on global food problems and to create a sense of solidarity in the fight against poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

The theme was chosen by United nation to highlight the role of cooperatives -- or voluntary associations of people who work together for their common benefit -- in improving food security and contributing to the eradication of hunger.

The United Nation’s latest hunger report, released in October 2012, warns that nearly 870 million people around the world, or one in eight people on the planet, suffered from chronic undernourishment in 2010-12.

The report also asserted that the vast majority of the hungry, 852 million, live in developing countries, while 16 million people are undernourished in developed countries.

In India, on the eve of world food day, a group of dalit women farmers in Medak district in Andhra Pradesh highlighted the measure for preserving traditional farming practices, an effort which will help India tackle the serious malnutrition challenge it faces.

The women are using biodiversity as a weapon against hunger, malnutrition, erratic monsoon and climate change. Their effort will earn these villages the status of being declared an agri-biodiversity heritage site.

Along with cultivation, the women are also encouraging their children to take up agriculture.