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Can We Transform World Food Day Into A Celebration?

With Greater Diversity Of Crops—And Of Thought

Columns 2024-10-10, 11:16pm

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Danielle Nierenberg



Danielle Nierenberg

World Food Day is coming up next Wednesday, Oct. 16. And while it seems like it should be a day to celebrate the rich food traditions around the globe and come together over a shared meal, we’re in a time that feels difficult to celebrate.

Between conflicts, climate change, biodiversity loss, and more, we’re seeing what Dr. Evan Fraser, from the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, calls “cascading crises.” And the results are dire: At least 733 million people around the world—one out of every 11 people—are facing hunger, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In Africa, that number is one in five people. And if current trends continue, the situation will only get worse.

We have a lot of work to do.

Fortunately, though, we know what solutions are effective. This year’s World Food Day theme is “Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future,” and that’s spot-on: Everyone deserves affordable access to healthy, nutrient-rich, safe, and delicious food.

And the U.N. 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.” To that, I would add that we also need a diversity of people, practices, and thought to truly nourish the world.

This year, the prestigious World Food Prize will be awarded to Dr. Cary Fowler, the U.S. Special Envoy for Food Security, and agricultural scientist Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin. These two individuals are being honored 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,” according to the World Food Prize Foundation. 

I have so much respect and admiration for Dr. Fowler, and his work helps illuminate a powerful solution to a multitude of these cascading problems: He’s encouraging farmers and governments to grow “opportunity crops” like cowpea, millet, sorghum, and other ancient and resilient foods that have been overlooked in favor of so-called ‘staple crops’ but are actually very effective in building soil health and profitability, especially if storage and processing capacity can be improved in places like sub-Saharan Africa.

Another solution to building a meaningful right to food access—and this should be obvious!—is empowering women and girls. Equal rights for women are not only an ethical and moral imperative, but we can make significant progress toward solving the hunger crisis when we stop systematically undervaluing at least 50 percent of the world’s population. 

“Women are unquestionably the most important actors when it comes to our food system,” says Tom Pesek, Senior Liaison Officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. When it comes to food systems transformation, “women and women farmers are uniquely positioned to play an outsized role in leading this shift.” 

So many advocates have been saying this for decades, and frankly, it’s a little frustrating how often we have to hammer home this point when we know that, if women had access to the same resources as men—education, access to credit and financial services, extension agency support, and, let’s face it, respect—they could lift as many as 100 million people out of hunger, according to the FAO. If nothing else, it’s an economic solution: As Betty Chinyamunyamu of the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi says, “gender integration makes good business sense.”

And women are, often, the ones growing the foods that are actually nutritious! Foods like those opportunity crops; foods like fruits and vegetables that contribute to agrobiodiversity. Empowering women in all aspects of their lives is both practical and powerful, and improves the well-being of both the people and the ecosystems that surround them. 

Moreover, farmers—small, medium, large, of all genders and ages and nationalities—need a literal seat at the table. Farmers need to be central to providing in-person input at international dialogues like the U.N. Climate Change Conference, which this year is called COP29, and to co-creating technologies with scientists and entrepreneurs that will actually solve the problems that farmers are experiencing in fields and ranches. 

As just a couple examples, in Zambia, Good Nature Agro is working with farmers to develop 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. (I’m so excited to witness that, by the way, and it was an honor to hear from the organization’s CEO, farmer Gerardo Martinez, at Food Tank’s Climate Week events last month. Check out more about what he had to say HERE.)

“When we think about solutions, we need to think about holistic solutions,” says Jahan-Zeb Chowdhury, Global Lead of the Environment and Climate Cluster at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). “Smallholder farmers are producing one-third of the global food, yet they are receiving only 1.7 percent of total climate finance.”

This World Food Day, Food Tank is proud to partner with the Arrell Food Institute and FAO on the Arrell Food Summit in Toronto, Canada, which has been designated as the official North American World Food Day 2024 event. The Summit is bringing together agri-food leaders and experts to 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.

For now, World Food Day is a time of hard work and difficult conversations. But my hope is that, in the not-so-distant future, World Food Day will actually be a day to celebrate a transformed food system that nourishes us all with equitable, accessible, affordable, healthful, delicious meals. 

Let’s talk more about what it might take to build a future where World Food Day becomes a celebration of our global success to solve hunger and nourish people and the planet. Email me at danielle@foodtank.com to share success stories in your neck of the woods!

(Danielle Nierenberg is the President of Food Tank and can be reached at danielle@foodtank.com)