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World Food Day 2011   The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, the day on which the Organization was founded in 1945. The World Food Day this year will be celebrated on  16 October 2011.   The U.N. World Food Program says there are growing concerns over food insecurity in the developing world. Some of those concerns are discussed in a report released to coincide with the commemoration Sunday of World Food Day.   The theme for World Food Day 2011 is “Food Prices - From Crisis to Stability.” A ceremony to mark World Food Day held on Monday at the headquarters of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. Rising food prices, weather emergencies and political instability are deepening the struggle of families trying to provide for their households in many developing nations.   This year’s “State of Food Insecurity in the World” report, published last week, focuses on the impact of food-cost volatility, confirming that high, unpredictable prices are likely to continue. The report highlighted how poor consumers, small farmers and countries dependent on imports, especially in Africa, have been deeply affected by the food and economic crises.    India's food security situation   India's food security situation continues to rank as "alarming" according to the International Food Policy Research Institute's Global Hunger Index, 2011. It ranks 67 of the 81 countries of the world with the worst food security status. This means that there are only 14 countries in the world whose people have a worse nutritional status.   The UPA government was not able to introduce a Food Security Bill in the monsoon session and there is little agreement yet over who qualifies as poor enough to receive subsidized food grain.    "The poorest and most vulnerable people bear the heaviest burden when food prices spike or swing unpredictably," said Klaus von Grebmer, lead author of the report and IFPRI communications director. The IFPRI report comes just a day after the Food and Agriculture Organisation's State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011, which said that food price volatility is likely to increase over the next decad   World Food Day 2010   The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October. The World Food Day this year will be celebrated on  16 October 2010.  With an estimated increase of 105 million hungry people in the year 2009, there are now 1.02 billion malnourished individual across the world, viz. almost one sixth of entire human race is suffering from hunger.    Poverty and hunger are interlinked. And recent report from the Food and Agriculture Organization manifests that there are more than 1 billion people around the world who suffer from hunger everyday.

(According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Hunger Index, 2011, India ranks 67 out of the 81 countries of the world with the worst food security status.)        Hunger negatively affects the brain development of children, setting back their chances of success later on in life

World Food day 2009   In 2009, WFP set a goal to feed 108 million people in 74 countries across the world, but a major budget deduction has prompted a cut down of rations to hungry people in some countries, and program suspensions in others. So far, donors have contributed around US$2.9 billion towards WFP's 2009 budget of US$6.7 billion.    WFP has fed about 10 percent of the world's population till date but last year, for the first time, the organization could not reach that set target. As an agency that caters to emergency needs, WFP had also met many unexpected demands in 2009, such as the aid to the recent floods in the Philippines    World Food Day Origins   The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 first recognized the right to food as a human right. It was then incorporated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11) adopted in 1966 and ratified by 156 states, which are today legally bound by its provisions. The expert interpretation and more refined definition of this right are contained in General Comment 12 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1999). The Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security – the Right to Food Guidelines – were adopted by the FAO Council in 2004 and provide practical recommendations on concrete steps for the implementation of the right to food.     In November 1979, World Food Day (WFD) was launched by FAO's Member Countries on its 20th General Conference. The Hungarian Delegation, headed by the former Hungarian Minister of Agriculture and Food, Dr. Pal Romany had been instrumental at the 20th Session of the FAO Conference and floated the idea of celebrating the WFD across the world. Since then this day has been observed every year in more than 150 countries, highlighting awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger.   Objectives of World Food Day * Encourage to increase agricultural food production and to stimulate national, bilateral, transnational and non-governmental initiatives to this end. * Catapult economic and technical coordination among developing nations. * Enhance the participation of rural people, particularly women and the under privileged strata, in decisions and events impacting their living conditions. * Augment public awareness of the issue of hunger in the world. * Advocate the journey of technologies to the developing world. * Revitalize international and national solidarity in the combat against hunger, malnutrition and poverty and attract attention to accomplishments in food and agricultural development.   World Food Day Themes   World Food Day has disseminated different themes every year, in order to highlight areas needed to take action and provide a generic focus, since 1981.   The right to food is the inherent human right of every woman, man, girl and boy, wherever they live on this planet. The choice of The Right to Food as the theme for 2007 World Food Day and TeleFood demonstrates increasing recognition by the international community of the important role of human rights in eradicating hunger and poverty, and hastening and deepening the sustainable development process.    Devastating effect on Children   Speaking to mark the occasion of World Food Day on 16 October 2009,   the Executive Director of WFP, James Morris, has appealed to the developed world to give a fairer chance to the world’s 400 million hungry children, many of whose lives are still blighted by malnutrition in the first few months after being born.    New research has shown yet again that the rapid development of the brain during the early months and years of life is crucial and influences learning, behaviour and health throughout the life cycle. Hunger negatively affects the brain development of children, setting back their chances of success later on in life.

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