The United Nations has marked October 16 as a day to mark the World Food Day, it is also a day for the celebration of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. It is one of the most celebrated days of the UN calendar as more than 150 countries in the world plan events for this day. The effects of climate change cannot be overemphasized, hence this day helps to create awareness on the challenges facing the world in terms of hunger, most especially in developing countries.
SDG 2 aims for Zero Hunger by 2030, a feat that can only be met when nations rise and work together to ensure this becomes a reality. The effort is not making food available but ensuring that what is obtainable is nutritious enough for consumers. 805 million people in our world today live with chronic hunger, 60% being women and almost five million children under the age of five die of malnutrition-related causes on a daily basis. Food, therefore should not be seen as a privilege but as a basic human right.
Here are a few reasons why Zero Hunger Changes the World
- Zero hunger could save the lives of 3.1 million children a year
- Well-nourished mothers have healthier babies with stronger immune systems
- Ending child undernutrition could increase a developing country’s GDP by 16.5 percent
- A dollar invested in hunger prevention could return between $15 and $139 in benefits
- Proper nutrition early in life could mean 46 percent more in lifetime earnings
- Eliminating iron deficiency in a population could boost workplace productivity by 20 percent
- Ending nutrition-related child mortality could increase a workforce by 9.4 percent
- Zero hunger can help build a safer, more prosperous world for everyone
The saying goes, “Hunger kills more than Ebola but it is not considered a significant problem because the rich do not die from it.” Depending on who is making the statement, there might be an iota of justification in it. Hunger is real and people are indeed dying from it. It remains one of the cruellest ways for a human, a child especially to lose his or her life.
We must just not only see today as a day to ensure hunger becomes a thing of the past, but we must also enshrine these values of meeting the 2030 SDG target, in our children; teach them to always share and ensure there are no food wastes. In case we do not know, the food currently lost or wasted in Latin America could feed 300 million people, the food currently wasted in Europe could feed 200 million people, and the food currently lost in Africa could feed 300 million people. Now the fact remains that even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world.
This shows that turning the tide is the job of everybody. We cannot be a party to contributing to more food waste. Even as climate change is wrecking its own havoc, as farmers and fishermen continue struggling to cope with increasing temperature and weather-related disasters. We all have a task on our hands and we must fulfil it.