The celebration coincides with World Food Day, whose theme this year is “Hand in Hand for Better Foods and a Better Future.”

This day calls for overcoming the serious problems that prevent humanity from making more sustained and effective progress toward eliminating this scourge.

In its message for this year’s anniversary, FAO called for strengthening international collaboration “to build a peaceful, sustainable, prosperous, and food-secure future” and highlighted the importance of “teamwork among governments, organizations, sectors, and communities.”

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu underscored in his opening speech at the Fifth World Food Forum on October 13 that, despite efforts, “8.2 percent of the world’s population still faces hunger.”

In the fight against this evil, “FAO has worked, for eight decades, side by side with nations, farmers, youth, women, indigenous peoples, scientists, and entrepreneurs, all united by a common belief: food can be the foundation of peace, dignity, and shared prosperity,” Qu stated.

The FAO chief acknowledged the achievement of significant progress compared to FAO’s early years, when two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants suffered from hunger or malnutrition.

However, the current situation is extremely worrying, as hunger is now compounded by food insecurity, which affects 2.3 billion people.

For this reason, on this anniversary, while highlighting past achievements, FAO recalls the work that remains to be done to ensure food security worldwide and emphasizes the need for greater collective awareness and promoting changes in agricultural and food distribution practices.

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