Theme, "Right to Food for a Better Life and a Better Future," World food day celebration.
World Food Day started officially in 1979 by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The Food and Agriculture Organization started earlier, in the 1960s, to provide food assistance all around the world. A few years later, they decided to have a recognition day to raise awareness about world hunger. The UN says that there are so many people going hungry around the world at the moment because of weather, conflict, problems with money, inequality, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Many children are currently going hungry in places where war and conflict is happening, like in Congo.
This year's world food took place on 16th October. Vegan Hub celebrated this day with households and the public through street feeding. Local communities in Narok Kenya, despite having large tracts of lands, still go hungry at times because of lack of money to purchase the most basic foodstuffs like vegetables. Vegan Hub Africa took the initiative to go door to door teaching households how to do home based vegetable plantations (Spinach, Kales, Coriander, Onions, and tomatoes). This was aimed at improving food supply to these households as well as reducing cost for them. Through this training, Vegan Hub also aimed at improving the adoption of vegan diets in this meat consuming community.
Vegan Hub extended this day's celebration to the streets where we conducted street feeding. Githeri, avocado and pan-fried cabbages was served to street riders and kids. The participants were encouraged that adopting plant-based diets is one way to reduce pressure on our ecosystem and reducing overreliance on animal derived foods.
Looking ahead
Adopting plant-based food systems for sustainable healthy diets framework offers a unique opportunity to improve diets and nutrition at one of the most critical times in history, marked by a series of food, economic, climatic, and conflict crises that threaten human and planetary health. Anchoring sustainable plant-based diets as a key outcome of food systems transformation can help tackle malnutrition. For policymakers, using the food systems paradigm creates new opportunities to revamp national dietary guidelines to incorporate health and environmental considerations, and to incorporate multi-duty actions into national nutrition plans and other relevant sectoral strategies. However, achieving sustainable healthy diets that realize the right to food will require coordinated efforts from across many sectors, including health, agriculture, education, social inclusion, and Non-profit organizations.
This World Food Day, as we promote the "Right to Food for a Better Life and a Better Future", we must recognize the critical role of the food systems for sustainable healthy diets approach for ensuring healthy diets for all.
