World Food Day is held annually on the 16th of October. It was founded by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations to heighten awareness of the issues surrounding poverty and hunger all over the world.
“We think it’s important for companies to drive awareness about socio-economic issues such as these and be the ones who spur others into action too.” – Managing Director FIL
The main objective of the FAO is to create sustainable agri-food systems that provide varied, nutritious and safe food that’s affordable and accessible to all people around the world. This means reforming the unsustainable and detrimental ways many countries produce, distribute and sadly waste food.
World Food Day provides an opportunity to come together and focus on the plight of over 800 million undernourished people around the world who are living in severe food insecurity.
According to the FAO:
- More than 3 billion people (almost 40% of the world’s population) cannot afford a healthy diet.
- Globally, 20% more women than men aged 25-34 live in extreme poverty and more than 18% of indigenous women live on less than USD 1.90 a day.
- The world’s food systems are currently responsible for more than 33% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
- 14% of the world’s food is lost due to inadequate harvesting, handling, storage and transit and 17% is wasted at consumer level.
- Biodiversity is suffering and soils are being degraded as a result of intensified agriculture, a growing consumption of resource-intensive foods, and the conversion of natural ecosystems for crop production or pasture.
(Source: https://www.fao.org/world-food-day)
The theme for World Food Day 2021 is Our Actions are Our Future. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life. So, First Impression Labels wanted to play its part by holding a food drive in October. Poverty and hunger are very real issues here in South Africa where many people live below the breadline and in rural areas where their main source of income is agriculture. We called on our employees to unite and take action in support of World Food Day 2021. We collected non-perishable food items that were then donated to charity on 16 October.