President Barack Obama shared these remarks to mark today, World Food Day 2012.

http://www.feedthefuture.gov/article/message-president-barack-obama-world-food-day

Posted on Huffington Post on October 16, 2012.

World Food Day was established in 1980 to bring public awareness to global hunger and strengthen solidarity in the struggle against malnutrition and poverty. Today, World Food Day is commemorated around the world in various ways, including here in the U.S. at the World Food Prize ceremony in Iowa, which each year honors significant contributions in agriculture.

But you don't have to be a scientist, farmer, or charity CEO to make a difference in food security, sustainability and hunger reduction. Below are three examples of ways you can make a difference on October 16, World Food Day:  Full Article

This year’s World Food Day theme is “Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world.” The official World Food Day theme, announced each spring by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), gives focus to World Food Day observances and raises awareness and understanding of approaches to ending hunger.

Cooperatives are an important piece of achieving food security for all. 70 percent of those who face hunger live in rural areas where agriculture serves as the economic mainstay. Smallholder farmers are central to addressing hunger, yet many face barriers such as a lack of infrastructure, outdated farming practices, and a lack of access to financial services.  Cooperatives improve farmers’ agricultural productivity and equip them with access to marketing, savings, credit, insurance, and technology. Farmer cooperatives serve both to connect farmers to markets and to increase food production.

Supporting smallholder farmers enhances global food security and reduces poverty. Cooperatives link smallholder farmers to markets by aggregating their product, facilitating the adoption of new technologies and inputs, encouraging greater productivity and crop diversification, and providing a platform for smallholder producers in decisions that affect their livelihoods.

It is estimated that 1 billion individuals are members of cooperatives worldwide, generating more than 100 million jobs around the world. In agriculture, forestry, fishing and livestock keeping, members participate in production, profit-sharing, cost-saving, risk-sharing and income-generating activities, which lead to better bargaining power for members as buyers and sellers in the marketplace.

One example based in California, Pachamama Coffee Cooperative of Small-Scale Coffee Producers (“Pacha”), is a unique global cooperative that is wholly-owned and controlled by small-scale coffee farmers around the world. Comprising five member cooperatives, Pacha represents tens of thousands of families in Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and Ethiopia. Following organic growing principles, the farmers are also concerned with environmental sustainability and the impact of coffee production on the health of surrounding ecosystems.  Member cooperatives are also involved in restoration, activities to prevent pollution of waterways and wildlife conservation.  

The family farmers attribute their success to the ownership structure of the cooperative business model, which enables them to invest in more value-added activities, such as marketing a "farmer-owned" brand in the USA and setting the price of their own premium coffees.  By pooling the resources of thousands of small farmers and linking them directly to consumer markets, Pachamama is able to pay farmers more for their crop while providing a valuable marketing platform that farmers own and control.

Good things happen when people believe in themselves and get organized. On World Food Day 2012, let us resolve to give cooperatives a helping hand, enabling them to overcome constraints and to play their full role in the drive to end hunger and poverty. This World Food Day, learn more about the importance of agricultural cooperatives by visiting FAO’s World Food Day site or the U.N.’s International year of the Cooperative page. More in depth information can be found in FAO’s issue brief on agricultural cooperatives.

Special thanks to Thaelon Tremain, President of Pachamama Coffee Cooperative and Brendan Rice, World Food Day Intern at the Food and Agriculture Organization who collaborated on this article. This piece is cross-posted on the Landscape for People, Food and Nature Initiative Blog.

World Food Day 2012

ACTIVITIES & EVENTS
From Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Joining Hands Program, US Food Sovereignty Alliance,  and Other Events Related to World Food Day
Go to the US Food Sovereignty Alliance Food Week of Action page

or

Download a PDF of the Activities to read, print or share via email

Christian alliance calls for investment in agroecology to end hunger and build resilient communities

The Presbyterian Church USA partners with the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), which just released a paper calling for increased investment in sustainable agricultural practices that support small-scale farmers and local communities, and also benefit the environment.

“Nourishing the World: Scaling up Agroecology” presents numerous examples of the successful use of agroecological methods in increasing yields for farmers using locally-available natural resources while lowering or eliminating farmers’ reliance on costly and polluting chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Global figures on hunger released today by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme emphasize the urgency of investing in effective policies and practices to feed the world. Nearly 870 million people, or 1 in 8, were suffering chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. According to the report, global progress in reducing hunger has levelled off since 2007-2008, with the number of hungry people rising in Africa and developed regions. More than 1 in 4 people in Africa are chronically hungry.

“Tackling hunger is not in the first instance about producing more food,” says Christine Campeau, EAA’s Food Campaign Coordinator. “It is about investing responsibly in sustainable agricultural practices and changing wasteful consumer habits that will benefit people, communities and the environment now and in the long-term.”

The paper sets out an alternative path to the one currently being promoted by some governmental and private sector initiatives, which is to expand the industrial “green revolution” style of agriculture. While this type of agriculture has certainly increased food production in recent decades, it has also “destabilized the natural resource base and drives much of the loss of biodiversity” as well as contributing - directly and indirectly - to the 30% of total global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) currently generated by the agricultural sector.

“In developed countries, where industrial-scale monocropping is the prevailing agricultural model, it is easy to forget that the majority of the world’s food is produced by smallholder farmers,” states Peter Prove, EAA Executive Director. “The answer to hunger and food insecurity is not turning more of these small farms into huge plantations, which damage both local communities and the environment, but investing in the knowledge-sharing, networking and sustainable practices that have proven to increase yields, protect the natural environment, empower communities, and enhance resilience in the face of a changing climate.”

“It’s all about Christian stewardship of God’s creation, and responding to the needs of people and communities rather than corporations”, stressed Nigussu Legesse, Programme Executive for Africa of World Council of Churches and member of the EAA’s Food Strategy Group.
The paper has been released in advanced of the meeting of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome, 15-20 October. Civil society representatives who participate in the CFS as part of a Civil Society Mechanism are calling on CFS members to act immediately to help small-scale food producers to adapt to climate change and prevent further dangerous climate change-related impacts on food security. In this context, the EAA is calling for:

* Much greater investment in research on agroecological food production methods, building on traditional knowledge and existing best practice, for the purpose of enhancing smallholder-based, low-emission, high-productivity agriculture in the context of climate change.

* Increased support for the establishment and expansion of farmer-to-farmer networks at local levels throughout the developing world, for the sharing of information and best practices in agroecological food production.

* Enabling policy environments at national and international levels, recognizing the central role of smallholder farmers in global food security and supporting smallholder-based agroecological food production, and agroecological extension programs at national and local levels.

* Increased support for the establishment and expansion of smallholder farmers’ collectives, to improve market opportunities and the collective capacities of smallholder farmers and their communities.

* More effective regulation and management of the negative impacts of corporate influence of agricultural policy and practice.

* More focused and effective attention to reducing food waste throughout the food supply chain.

“Agroecology will be necessary, if we are to find a viable path through the intertwined challenges of future food security, and climate change mitigation and adaptation,” the paper states in its conclusion. “In the context of climate change, business as usual in the field of food production is not an option. Agroecology offers the prospect of sustainable food production to meet the needs of a still growing global population, while at the same time reducing the GHG emissions from the agricultural sector, building resilience to already unavoidable climate change, protecting biodiversity, and sustaining communities and rural livelihoods.”

Nourishing the World: Scaling Up Agorecology is available at: http://tinyurl.com/EAAagroecology2012

Andrew Kang Bartlett is Associate for National Hunger Concerns for the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

Next Tuesday is World Food Day – an opportunity once a year (every October 16) to focus on one of the most persistent global challenges – hunger. In a world of mega supermarkets and fast food, there are still nearly one billion people who go to sleep hungry every night. As World Food Day USA states, this “is the greatest atrocity of our time.”

Historically our collective focus has been making sure there is enough food to feed the world, which continues as we prepare for a reality of more than 9 billion people by 2050. Yet what is often overlooked when we talk about hunger is the issue of nutrition.

Equally important to the quantity of our food is the quality of our food, the impact of which is far more hidden than the impact of hunger.  

Today more than two billion people are chronically malnourished – lacking the very basic but essential nutrients necessary for their health and wellbeing.  

And nearly 200 million children are stunted – meaning they are physically short for their age – due poor nutrition early in life, which impacts their health, development and long term productivity.

This is the hidden side of hunger.

How do you expose something that is hidden?

It’s true that we can often mobilize support around global issues (and local ones for that matter) when there is an urgent, immediate need. And hunger is truly urgent.

But nutrition does not seem to have the same level of urgency. It remains hidden as the underlying cause of 1 in 3 childhood deaths each year.

Yet every day malnourished women are at risk of dying during child birth. Every day children fall ill to preventable diseases like pneumonia because they don’t have healthy, strong immune systems. Every day children’s learning potential is limited because they lack the essential nutrients for good brain development.

The everyday nature of nutrition is precisely what makes it so urgent. Nutrition matters and it matters every day. Perhaps every day should be treated as World Food Day, because food and nutrition matter every single day for every single one of us.

The dream of the Texas Hunger Initiative began with the reality of a great need and a great strength in our state and in our country. We know that hunger exists in our state and the larger nation. More than 1 in 4 Texas children experience food insecurity, ranking Texas with the 5th highest percentage in the nation. Children and their families experience food insecurity right around us—even more than we may realize. Many children come to school without having eaten over the weekend, single mothers go without eating so that their children are fed, and still others make difficult choices between rent, electricity, and food each month.

However, in connection with this great need, is a great strength in our state and our nation; hunger is a unique problem because it is an arena where we typically find much common ground among multiple sectors in our society. Armored with the belief that hunger is both solvable and preventable, the Texas Hunger Initiative recognizes the capacity in our state that currently exists to build food security—this exists on all levels of government, including federal, state, and local. Capacity also exists through the nongovernment sector, including nonprofits, faith-based organizations, churches, and so on.

The work of the Texas Hunger Initiative seeks to reconcile this great need and this great capacity in our state. The collaborative, capacity-building efforts of the Texas Hunger Initiative emphasize the dual need to organize policy makers, as well as to organize local communities. Our work began by partnering with the USDA to promote creative, comprehensive ways to increase food security through federal program access for all Texans. This initial trust-building among policy-makers on the federal and state levels catalyzes the efficiency of the overarching system that impacts healthy food access on local levels.

In addition to organizing on the policy level, organizing local communities began with the need to eliminate barriers to access healthy food. Food Planning Associations are being organized in communities across the state, and they are bringing together diverse community members to one table and assessing the needs and assets within the community. These local associations seek to address the gaps, reduce duplication of services, and work with members of various organizations, schools, churches, social service agencies, as well as local officials.

Our dual focus on organizing at the policy and local level has led to exciting change and expansion of collaborative efforts throughout the state. As the Texas Hunger Initiative grows in internal and external capacity, movement toward food security is being realized through expanding partnerships. The Texas Hunger Initiative is expanding geographically with new offices in communities that will lead to a permanent presence in 12 communities across the state. We are excited to be expanding our focus on SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), Summer Meals, and Breakfast in the Classroom.

The story of the Texas Hunger Initiative is still unfolding. We are still in process; we are still researching, developing, and learning. As director of the Texas Hunger Initiative, I have found that building trust in communities—all forms of communities, including geographic, political, and interest—is essential in moving forward. It is truly the cornerstone of our work and the basis of all our organizing and collaborative strategies.

As part of World Food Day, we are reminded of globalization and the interconnectedness of our world. We are reminded of our neighbors overseas who experience high food insecurity and how the economic and political decisions we make in our state and our nation affect our neighboring countries, and vice versa. We are therefore aware of the importance of communication, relationships, and collaboration across all sectors. The interconnectedness of our communities and the concepts of mutuality and reciprocity among all members of a community constitute the moral underpinnings of the Texas Hunger Initiative; we need the strengths, assets, and efforts of all people, all institutions, all organizations, recognizing we are all a part of the solution, to build food security in our state, our nation, and world.

Jeremy Everett is Director of the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University.

This World Food Day join your local hunger free coalition to build food security in your community.  

Attend the Southwest Regional Hunger Summit “Together at the Table”, October 17-18, 2012 at Baylor University.  The Hunger Summit will be an opportunity for leaders and practitioners from across the Southwest United States to share their knowledge and expertise about food insecurity.

Hunger is not a matter of production, but a matter of justice and democracy. In celebration of those grassroots activists working for a more democratic food system, the fourth annual Food Sovereignty Prize, to be held in New York City this Wednesday, October 10, champions the right of people to determine their own food and agriculture policies!

As an alternative to the World Food Prize, the Food Sovereignty Prize honors innovative organizations around the world that are fighting for the right to food for all and dignity for those who put food on our plates. The ceremony will highlight the work of the Korean Women’s Peasant Association, as well as the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement of Sri Lanka, the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan Region in Honduras and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers from the United States.

Join us in honoring the 2012 Food Sovereignty Prize honorees this Wednesday, October 10, 7-9p.m. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York. The ceremony will also include UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter, and a special musical performance by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman. WhyHunger is proud to host the event, co-sponsored by the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, the Small Planet Fund and the Lawson ValentineFoundation.

Tickets are free and open to the public! Reservations must be made at www.foodsovereigntyprize.org.

Can’t attend? Watch the live stream at www.foodsovereigntyprize.org (on October 10, 7-9 PM Eastern) and join the conversation on Twitter at #FoodSovPrize.

Siena Chrisman is Programs Communications Manager at WhyHunger.

***Originally posted on the WhyHunger blog.***

Why? One of the most important lessons I have learned in my short twenty years is that I do not ask this question enough. Fear of asking a dumb question kept me quiet during my childhood, and as I got older I hoped my silence would fool others into thinking I already had all the answers. It turns out that the joke was on me. I spent most of my life making assumptions about the way the world is and why the people in the world are the way they are. For the most part, I assumed people were fat because they were gluttons; people were uneducated because they didn’t value wisdom; and people were poor because they were lazy.

Despite my harsh assumptions, I still managed to have a desire to serve others, and so I found myself signing up for a course called Hunger: Causes, Consequences, Responses, my freshman year at Auburn. This class awakened me from my world of assumptions and brought me into a world of confusion and discomfort; a world that I have since been unable to escape because this world is our world and it is our reality.

I learned that in this world there is injustice. There are corrupt leaders and backwards politics. There are natural disasters, droughts, and famines. There is prejudice and violence. There is war and unrest. There is rape and abuse. There is human trafficking. There are homeless and displaced people. There are uncared for widows and orphans. There is disease. There is inequality. There are unequally distributed resources. There is starvation in a world of plenty.
And there are innocent people who face these horrors every day. These are people who seldom get asked what sequence of events led them to a life of hardship. I have learned that there is a concrete difference between loving to have a heart that serves and having a heart that serves with love. I learned about the detrimental effects even seemly small injustices can have in the lives of many because of our globalized world. As my head filled with knowledge, my heart filled with compassion.

All too suddenly, statistics came to life and grew into hungry people, people who were more like me than I wanted to think. I realized I could have just as easily been born into a life of suffering in which I would be just a number or statistic to people of plenty, rather than a person recognized for my humanity. For a while I let guilt consume me as I questioned what I had done to have been spared a life of suffering and live a life abundant in blessings. Finally, my question was answered by a profoundly humbling realization: I did nothing to deserve to be born into a life of ease, by grace it was given to me.

My all-consuming guilt has evolved into overwhelming thankfulness, which gives me the strength to not only to recognize the injustice in the world, but to see the faces of the people it effects.  I am now no longer merely concerned that one billion people are hungry; I want to ask one billion people why they are hungry. I have learned that the issue of hunger cannot be solved until the root of hunger is discovered.

Enrolling in that hunger studies class was my attempt to become the girl with all the answers. What I have become, is a girl who is not afraid to ask all the questions.

Aubrey Sullivan is a student at Auburn University.