World Food Day is Almost Here!
History:
On November 1979, World Food Day was launched by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Since then, this day has been observed every year in more than 150 countries, highlighting awareness of the issues behind p overty and hunger. World Food Day, also celebrates the efforts to produce adequate supplies of nutritious food for the global population and to highlight the achievements in ensuring that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.
The objectives of World Food Day are to:
- to raise public awareness
- focus attention on food security
- disseminate information
- mobilize public opinion and funds in favor of the global fight against hunger
The problem:
Almost 1 billion people globally are hungry, and more than 239 million of these people live in sub-Saharan Africa
Factors linked to hunger:
- Lack of appropriate tools/knowledge
- Access to markets
- mono-cropping
- high food prices
- soil erosion
- drought
- poverty
What CPAR’s doing to help:
CPAR supports long-term food security for farming families in rural African communities. CPAR’s work with small-scale African farmers is centred around the Farmer Field School methodology. Farmer Field Schools are farmer-led ‘schools without walls’ that build on farmers’ existing knowledge and experience, to enable them to come together to experiment and adapt farming methods to suit their own unique and often fragile ecosystems. Farmer Field Schools are oriented to provide agro-ecological knowledge and skills in hands-on and participatory ways. The farmers themselves lead the process, meeting on a regular basis over the course of one full cropping season, after which they ‘graduate’ and continue on as facilitators for other farmers’ groups – creating a ripple effect of positive change.
Further, the emphasis placed on improving farmers’ access to timely and accurate market information (including market prices for harvested crops) empowers farmers with better knowledge to better navigate the market system, and thus gain better incomes. The cumulative effect is to strengthen the long-term livelihood positions of small-scale farmers in order that they can manage their land with a view to long-term productivity. Empowering farmers with the skills and resources to manage their land sustainably preserves the natural resource endowments available to the sector as-a-whole.
What YOU can do to help:
Put the pressure on politicians to end hunger by signing the Ending Hunger petition! The goal of this campaign is to make the allocation of funds to end global hunger a top priority of governments. By signing the petition, you and over 3,000,000 others have confirmed their belief that “It is unacceptable that close to one billion people are chronically hungry.”
- Join the growing movement against hunger now. Go to EndingHunger.org to sign the petition
- Text AFRICA to 45678 to make a $10 donation to CPAR on your mobile phone (the $10 donation will be added to your cell-phone bill. See terms at mobilegiving.ca)
- Buy ‘Tools for Food’ kits for only $25 each. Through our Putting Farmers First approach, CPAR is working with African farmers in Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania to help provide the ‘Tools for Food’ that will help them to overcome hunger and generate income. When you buy a ‘Tools for Food’ kit that includes vegetable and fruit seeds, watering cans and hand tools like a digging hoes and shovels – you will empower farmers to feed themselves and their families. To purchase a ‘Tools For Food’ kit, visit www.faceofgiving.ca now.
- Sign up for the Putting Farmers First newsletter to stay up-to-date on all the action – CLICK HERE!
Buzz it!