To commemorate this year’s World Food Day (October 16), FAO Oman, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources and the Omani Food Bank (Dayma), is holding a conference at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre.
It aims to raise awareness about food systems and calls on everyone to make food choices that improve both health and food systems, preserving habits that support them, respect food and food producers and join in any global solidarity efforts wherever possible.
The ceremony to be held under the auspices of Dr Saud bin Hamoud al Habsi, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, will also mark the official inauguration of the Omani Food Bank, also known as Dayma, which is a first-of-its kind initiative to reduce food waste and give surplus to the needy. Further interventions featured an exchange of ideas and success stories between the Food Banks of Oman, Saudi Arabia and Egypt with the aim of reducing food waste, food preservation and recycling surplus food.
On the occasion of World Food Day, FAO Oman stated, “If we are committed to ensuring that no one is left behind, we have to transform our current agrifood systems to provide equal opportunities for all producers, and help smallholders gain access to new markets. This also means investing in rural transformation.”
Furthermore, FAO is calling for action across sectors to ensure that the agrifood systems deliver enough affordable, nutritious and safe food for all because the agrifood systems are interlinked to so many different areas of lives and economy – from agriculture to natural resources to energy to health and they hold great potential as vehicles for a more equitable and prosperous future.
“Agrifood systems transformation is critical if we want to honour our pledge to leave no one behind and deliver better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life for all. For this reason, agrifood systems transformation is higher on the global agenda than ever before,” stated FAO Oman.
This year’s #WorldFoodDay is being marked in a year with multiple global challenges including the ongoing pandemic, conflicts, climate change, rising prices and international tensions.
All of this is affecting global food security. In that context, this year’s theme, "Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment, and a Better Life", known as the four betters, is expected to raise awareness of the need for supporting the transformation to more efficient and sustainable agrifood systems.
Small-scale farms produce more than a third of the world’s food, but they represent 80 per cent of the world's producers. While they are one of the foundations of agrifood systems, according to UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, smallholders are too often trapped in cycles of poverty and food insecurity and excluded from opportunities in systems dominated by large producers and retailers.
The 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit and other multilateral initiatives have spurred dialogues and the development of pathways to transform agrifood systems in many countries around the world. But there is still much more to be done to ensure that no one is left behind.
World Food Day was established in 1945 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a specialised agency of the United Nations. But it would be another 34 years before it was recognised as a world holiday at the 20th FAO conference in November 1979. Following this, 150 countries proceeded to celebrate the day once it gained its official recognition by the United Nations. Since 2014, the popularity of the day has been used to promote the idea of feeding the world and eliminating poverty in rural nations.
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