World Food Day-(16th October 2022) What is Our Commitment and the Relevance?

World Food Day-(16th October 2022) What is the Relevance?

2022 finds us still cruising in the 3rd year of? Covid-19 pandemic aftermath, escalating commodity prices, unpredictable climatic patterns and heightened tension.?

SDGs deadline is drawing near with 8 years at hand to work on commitments on board to fulfil them since commissioning in 2015. SDG2 Zero Hunger is not exceptional. We must race against the ticking time.

Who established World Food Day?

World Food Day is marked on 16 October each year. It Was begun in the year 1945 by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a specialized agency of United Nations, to observe its inception.?

150 countries world wide take part in celebrating this day. This is to recognize the milestones in building food resilience.?

The popularity of the day has gained momentum since 2014 to crusade the crucial idea of feeding the world and eliminating poverty. It reminds us that food is basic unanimous need for all of us.

What is this year’s Theme?

“Leave NO ONE Behind” is, calling upon us to work in unison to ensure equitable nutritious food distribution. All the sectors including governments, private, Non-governmental, academia, business must rise to occasion to realign the food system web.?

Even at the peak of human and? technological development, a good number of people, counting to millions, are still stuck at the lag phase of the celebrated multiple economic growth.

In fact they are staring at the blows of food insecurity and malnutrition. We have to cut short the cycle ties and uplift the 80% of the global poor population residing in rural areas.

How is the Food Security status -2022?

The number of people facing hunger has been on the rising trajectory globally from 282 million to around 345 million since the beginning of the year with high food prices being experienced.

It is estimated 20% of the continent’s population are exposed to chronic hunger. The major drivers are climate change, conflicts and covid-19 pandemic. The Russia- Ukraine war is the recent one that has affected food supply, especially wheat and maize.

Additionally around one-third of food produced is lost or wasted corresponding to estimation of $1 trillion. In sub-Saharan Africa, the estimate is 37% kg/year per capita.

In Kenya, a country in sub-Saharan Africa, over 3.5 million are likely to experience heightened acute food insecurity driven by abnormal extension of below average rain seasons. According to Kenya Food Security Steering Group (KFSSG) about 942,500 children under five years old and 134,270 pregnant and lactating mothers are acutely malnourished.

The above data picture is worrying and needs us to consolidate our efforts and bring down the numbers to restore dignity robbed by hunger.

What is being done to solve food insecurity?

We need to repurpose our moves and pick routes that will lead us to a world where everyone has regular access to sufficient nutritious food amid seasonal odds.

1. Agriculture subsidies implementation

Meeting the lion’s share of elevating smallholder farmers especially in developing and middle income countries by injecting subsidies on the farm inputs, where fertilizer tops the feasibility list. Lowering fertilizer prices for instance, will bolster farmers when it comes to production costs.

2. Responsible consumption?

This will heavily reduce food wastage behaviors. It is everyone's’ responsibility to learn and adopt habit of eating enough and right waste disposal. It is noted that food wastes is rapidly contributing to increase in greenhouse gas.

3. Climate change action needed

Sleepy potential farmlands in ASAL areas need fresh water supply to compliment water harvesting mechanisms such as water pans to improve irrigation ecosystem by channeling runoff water to the pans.

Notably, agroforestry is becoming recognized as land use that is capable of generating wood and food while at the same time conserving the ecosystem.?Adopting it is advantageous to climatic restoration.

That said, the plenty of commitments towards climate resuscitation and rehabilitation need implementation now more than ever.

Nations and Multi Stakeholder within must come together and collegiate their efforts to ease the tension exacerbated on peace and climate shifts. This will allow more food distribution and decelerate food prices.

What is the journey route of FSPN Africa?

As we mark World Food Day, FSPN Africa believes that through peaceful coexistence, technology and innovations in agriculture are most powerful interventions at the intersection of climate shocks and poverty experienced by smallholder farmers.

It is a fact that majority of food producers in Africa dwell in rural areas and need support in terms of agrinutrition knowledge and technology infrastructures on food production that is up to date. Below is our progress:

1. Food preservation techniques?

Food producers, especially small holder farmers run the fear food spoilage. FSPN Africa is actively educating smallholder farmers on postharvest food handling and storage, to bridge seasonal gaps especially in rainfed areas.?

Looking forward, we are scaling down food loss by enlightening smallholder farmers on the available recommended food storage protocols and easy-to-adopt value addition innovations for different crop value chains.?

2. Food Distribution

Working with partners to leverage on food distribution through putting in place technologies and infrastructure to link farmers to consumers through Farm to Fork Solution series. Goal is to ensure constant nutritious food availability to all.

We foresee reducing food loss sustained due to improper handling during harvesting, transportation and exchange at market places. It is right to note that Injuries inflicted on food especially fresh produce tend to hasten deterioration in quality whose endpoint is loss.

“Leaving NO ONE Behind” FSPN Africa is working closely with Women and youth in Agriculture to ensure production capacity is driven towards achieving food availability, accessibility, affordability and utilization.

To strengthen the four pillars of food security, we are focusing on food production processes and the resilience needed for food to reach end-users.? Adoption of Good Agricultural Practices by most of smallholder farmers has set us the resilience pace and it is a positive record that we hope keep growing.