World Food Day seems like it should be a time to celebrate. A day to eat delicious meals and enjoy the rich traditions and cultures of food around the globe.
But it’s difficult to celebrate when conflict, the climate crisis, and our biodiversity loss crisis leave at least 733 million people hungry around the world. Dr. Evan Fraser from the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph calls these cascading crises. And the results are dire.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2023, one in 11 people worldwide faced hunger last year. And one in five people in Africa experience hunger.
If current trends continue, more than 582 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, with half of these folks living on the continent of Africa, according to FAO and four additional United Agencies. That’s less than 6 years away, which means we have a lot of work to do.
Fortunately, we already know what works. The theme of this year’s World Food Day is Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future. Everyone deserves healthy, nutrient rich, safe, and delicious food.
And the United Nations says, “A greater diversity of nutritious foods should be available in our fields, in our markets, and on our tables, for the benefit of all.” I would add that we also need a diversity of people, practices and thought to help feed the world.
This year the prestigious World Food Prize will be awarded to the Special Envoy for Food Security, Dr. Cary Fowler, and agricultural scientist Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin. These two individuals, according to the World Food Prize Foundation, are being awarded for “their extraordinary leadership in preserving and protecting the world’s heritage of crop biodiversity and mobilizing this critical resource to defend against threats to global food security.”
And Dr. Fowler is working to encourage farmers and governments to grow “opportunity crops” like cowpea, millet, sorghum, and other ancient and resilient foods. These crops have often been overlooked in favor of maize, rice, and other so-called staples, but they have, again, the opportunity to solve a multitude of problems. They build soil health and if storage and processing can improve in places like sub-Saharan Africa, they can be profitable.
Another solution—and it should be obvious—is empowering women and girls. We are systematically underutilizing at least 50 percent of the world’s population. Equal rights for women are not only an ethical and moral imperative, but can help solve the hunger crisis.
According to FAO, if women had the same access to resources as men—education, access to credit and financial services, extension, and respect—they could lift as many as 100 million people out of hunger. And equal rights are good for the economy. And according to Betty Chinyamunyamu of the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi, “gender integration makes good business sense.”
In addition, women are often growing the foods that are actually nutritious—including those opportunity crops, but also fruits and vegetables that contribute to agrobiodiversity. “Women’s empowerment has a positive impact on agricultural production, food security, diets and child nutrition,” states FAO’s Status of Women in Agrifood Systems. Making sure that women are empowered in all aspects of their lives just makes common sense.
Moreover, farmers—small, medium, and large—literally need a seat at the table, from in person input at international dialogues like COP29, the U.N. Climate Change Conference, to co-creating technologies with scientists and entrepreneurs that will actually solve the problems that farmers are experiencing in fields and ranches.
Good Nature Agro in Zambia, for example, is developing with farmers ways to prevent post-harvest losses and more sustainably manage their farmland. And the organization Global Alliance of Latinos in Agriculture aims to create a world where farmers and ranchers thrive globally—and they plan to bring hundreds of producers to COP30 in Belem, Brazil next year.
This World Food Day (October 16), the Arrell Food Institute is bringing together agri-food leaders and experts dive into solutions like diversity, empowering women, and putting farmers in the drivers’ seat to create a more safe and sustainable global food system. A food system that works for everyone.
Hopefully, in the not-so-distant future, World Food Day will actually be a day to celebrate.
Danielle Nierenberg is President and Founder, Food Tank, which describes itself as a global community that inspires, motivates, and activates positive transformation in how we produce and consume food.
