“The key to better nutrition, and ultimately to ensuring each person’s right to food, lies in better food systems – smarter approaches, policies and investments encompassing the environment, people, institutions and processes by which agricultural products are produced, processed and brought to consumers in a sustainable manner,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day.

“Every day, more than 840 million people go hungry in a world of plenty. This fact alone should be cause for moral outrage and concerted action.”

The theme of this year’s Day, which is celebrated on 16 October in honour of the date of the founding of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945, is “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition.”

A food system is made up of the environment, people, institutions and processes by which agricultural products are produced, processed and brought to consumers. Every aspect of the food system has an effect on the final availability and accessibility of diverse, nutritious foods – and therefore on consumers’ ability to choose healthy diets. However, policies and interventions on food systems are rarely designed with nutrition as their primary objective.

“Addressing malnutrition requires integrated action and complementary interventions in agriculture and the food system, in natural resource management, in public health and education, and in broader policy domains,” FAO said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) stressed that understanding food systems and ending malnutrition can transform individuals, societies and economies, and is central to all development efforts.

“Prioritizing nutrition today is an investment in our collective global future. The investment must involve food, agriculture, health and education systems,” said WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin.

In addition to the 840 million people suffering from chronic hunger, there are some 2 billion people who lack the vitamins and minerals needed to live healthy lives. Poor nutrition also means some 1.4 billion people are overweight, with about one-third obese and at risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes or other health problems.

WFP noted that if the global community invested $1.2 billion per year for five years on reducing micronutrient deficiencies, the benefits in better health, fewer child deaths and increased future earnings would generate gains worth $15.3 billion.

The Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres stressed that food systems are closely linked to climate change as the latter is making it harder to feed a growing population.

“Aside from permanent shifts in climatic conditions which will affect farming, climate change is causing more and more extreme weather, for example tropical storms, floods and droughts which can push subsistence farmers and others living in food insecurity into dire circumstances,” she said.

“If we are to sustainably feed the world’s population in the future we need to see action today that prepares farmers around the world for the impacts of climate change.”

To mark the Day, FAO will be holding events all week at its headquarters in Rome and around the world on the importance of food systems for food security and nutrition.

Today it will hold a plenary hall with various UN agency officials as well as a high-level seminar on global food losses and waste, and on Thursday a special ceremony will be held to mark the culmination of the International Year of Quinoa, with Nadine Heredia Alarcón de Humala, First Lady of Peru and Special Ambassador for the Year in attendance.

On Sunday FAO will hold the Hunger Run 2013 in central Rome, a 10 kilometre competitive run and a five kilometre non-competitive run/walk to raise funds an anti-hunger field project in the Northern State of Sudan.

“Yemen is a country wracked by chronic poverty and underdevelopment, and millions of Yemenis are struggling to cope,” said Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos.

“People need food, water, education and health care. But they also want to know that there is investment to secure their future. We urgently need more funding to help those in need.”

More than 10 million people in Yemen – almost half the country’s population – are either hungry or on the edge of hunger with very high rates of food insecurity. Child malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world with close to half of Yemen’s children under 5 years old – around 2 million children – suffering from stunting.

Following a visit to the country, Ms. Amos and the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, called on countries, particularly those in the Gulf region, to step up humanitarian efforts in Yemen.

This year, WFP aims to provide almost 5 million people in 16 governorates with food assistance and is working to build community resilience.

“WFP is providing life-saving food assistance to almost 5 million Yemenis to break the intergenerational cycle of hunger,” said Ms. Cousin. “We will continue this vital food assistance by improving food security and nutrition but at the same time helping build resilience of these communities. We are working to ensure families themselves are able to take care of their food needs through food for work, food for training and other income generating activities.

“We count on the support of our donors and the strong partnership with the Government of Yemen to help communities free themselves from the cycle of hunger.”

During their visit, Ms. Amos and Ms. Cousin met senior Government officials, to discuss humanitarian needs and the challenges facing the country. They also met non-governmental organizations, women leaders, humanitarian partners, and representatives of the donor community.

In addition, they travelled to the city of Hudeidah, where they saw first-hand efforts to combat malnutrition and food insecurity. They visited nutrition and health care clinics supported by WFP and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and saw the offloading of WFP food supplies at the Hudeidah Port. They also visited the Al Mazraq camp in Harad, where people displaced by the conflict in Sa’ada still live, and visited a centre where stranded migrants from the Horn of Africa receive assistance from the International Organization for Migration.

Yemen faces multiple humanitarian crises. Out of a population of 24 million, over half need some form of humanitarian aid. More than half of the population does not have access to clean water and proper sanitation, and one million children suffer from acute malnutrition.

“Here in Rwanda, WFP is providing the life-saving food assistance that we are known for to tens of thousands of refugees, but we and our partners are also supporting community-based agriculture and livelihoods projects that assist the poorest and most vulnerable Rwandans as they build a brighter future for their families,” said the agency’s Executive Director, Ertharin Cousin, at the end of her three-day visit to the country.

“When speaking with small-scale farmers and rural families, I could see very clearly the difference that rural development initiatives have made in helping people improve their lives.”

Ms. Cousin said the progress made on development in Rwanda illustrates the importance of close and effective partnerships between UN agencies, communities and government in helping in empowering people to lift themselves out of poverty.

“I met one woman farmer who started with nearly nothing, and now has become so successful that she’s been able to build her family a new house, and put her children though school,” said Ms. Cousin, who also met with displaced persons and refugees on both side of the border shared by Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

During her visit, Ms. Cousin also visited the Nkamira refugee transit centre and a successful terracing and watershed management project in Rulindo district, in northern Rwanda. She also visited and spoke with farmers in eastern Rwanda who belong to an agricultural cooperative in Kirehe district through which they are selling their surplus maize and beans to WFP via the Purchase for Progress initiative, known as “P4P”.

P4P aims to use WFP’s purchasing power to help connect smallholder farmers to markets. In Rwanda, the programme has grown from a WFP project into a national initiative, boosting productivity and improving the lives and livelihoods of small-scale farmers.

Since 2011, WFP has purchased 33,000 metric tons of combined food commodities – maize and beans – worth $15.5 million, through a combination of P4P purchases and regular food procurement.

WFP and the Rwandan Government are also exploring ways to link the P4P programme to food-for-education initiatives, providing students with a daily school meal grown in their own communities and turn schools into regular customers for local farmers.

This was Ms. Cousin’s first visit to Rwanda as WFP Executive Director. While in the country, she also met with top Government officials, including Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, and with the heads of UN agencies in Rwanda.

“Policy interventions that aim at encouraging greater levels of smallholder production for sale in markets need to take better account of the heterogeneity of smallholder households,” said David Hallam, Director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Trade and Markets Division.

In the foreword to the report, Smallholder Integration in Changing Food Markets, Hallam added that just as smallholders are a heterogeneous group, the markets in which they participate are also diverse in terms of their size, geographic location, connectivity to other markets, power relations between market players, and institutional setting.

The report notes that with greater market integration and more inclusive value chains, small farmers are more likely to adopt new technologies required to achieve productivity growth.

Stressing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, the two main ways to link farmers with markets is to provide them with better access to credit and insurance, and to strengthen the links between farmers and buyers.

Farmers will not expend more time, money and energy in producing more, if any surplus will likely go to waste because there is no storage, no transport or, possibly, no market within a reasonable distance, Hallam said.

“The risk that any money spent to produce more will be lost is too great a risk for poor farmers to run,” he added.

The report also notes a paradox of high food prices. Seen by some policymakers as an opportunity for farmers to produce more and earn more, the response by many farmers has been muted.

“High levels of price, production risks and uncertainty, and limited access to tools to manage them deter investment in more productive new technologies that would enable smallholders to produce surpluses for sale in markets,” according to the report.

It also highlights the negative consequence of inadequate infrastructure, high costs of storage and transportation, and non-competitive markets.

In addition to more tailored policies, the report also highlights the role of the public sectors and international development partners to promote better policies for small farmers.

In a message marking the launch of The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA), Director-General José Graziano da Silva said that although the world has registered some progress on hunger, one form of malnutrition, there was still “a long way” to go.

“FAO’s message is that we must strive for nothing less than the eradication of hunger and malnutrition,” he declared.

The report notes that while some 870 million people were still hungry in 2010-2012, this is just a fraction of the billions of people whose health, well-being and lives are blighted by malnutrition.

Two billion people suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies, while 1.4 billion are overweight, of whom 500 million are obese, according to the report, which adds that 26 per cent of all children under five are stunted and 31 per cent suffer from Vitamin A deficiency.

FAO states in a news release that vitamin and micronutrients deficiency together with obesity and overweight, costs to the world economy in lost productivity and health care are “unacceptably high” and could account for as much as 5 per cent of the global gross domestic product – $3.5 trillion, or $500 per person.

“That is almost the entire annual GDP of Germany, Europe’s largest economy,” the agency points out.

FAO notes that, in social terms, child and maternal malnutrition continue to reduce the quality of life and life expectancy of millions of people, while obesity-related health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes, affect millions more.

The key to combating malnutrition is healthy diets and good nutrition – which must start with food and agriculture, stresses FAO. “The way we grow, raise, process, transport and distribute food influences what we eat,” it says, adding that improved food systems can make food more affordable, diverse and nutritious.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including using appropriate agricultural policies, investment and research to increase productivity; cutting food losses and waste, which currently amount to one third of the food produced for human consumption every year; and helping consumers make good dietary choices for better nutrition through education, information and other actions.

Among other recommendations is to make food systems more responsive to the needs of mothers and young children. FAO notes that malnutrition during the critical ‘first 1,000 days’ from conception can cause lasting damage to women’s health and life-long physical and cognitive impairment in children.

The agency cites several projects that have proved successful in raising nutrition levels such as the promotion of home gardens in West Africa; encouragement of mixed vegetable and animal farming systems together with income-generating activities in some Asian countries; and public-private partnerships to enrich products like yoghurt or cooking oil with nutrients.

Making food systems enhance nutrition is a complex task, the report points out, adding that it requires strong political commitment and leadership at the highest levels, broad-based partnerships and coordinated approaches with other important sectors such as health and education.

“Food systems governance that is providing leadership, coordinating effectively and fostering collaboration among the many stakeholders is a first priority,” it says.

The persistently high and volatile food prices not only influence conditions of hunger and undernutrition, but also obesity which may increase in the context of high prices as people opt for cheaper, less nutritious food to feed their families, the World Bank Group’s quarterly Food Price Watch report said.

“Unhealthy food tends to be cheaper than healthy ones, like junk food in developed countries. When poor people with some disposable income in developing countries try to cope with high and increasingly volatile food prices, they also tend to choose cheap food that is high in calories but without much nutritious value,” said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group’s Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management.

“Half of the world’s overweight people live in just nine countries — China, United States, Germany, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey — evidence that obesity is not an epidemic restricted only to rich countries.”

According to the latest edition of the Food Price Watch, global food prices continued to fall between October 2012 and February 2013 – a trend observed since the recent all-time peak in August 2012 – but prices were only 9 percent below the August peak. Lower demand from a sharp fall in the use of wheat feed and reduced maize consumption for ethanol in the United States pushed prices down. Reported favorable weather conditions in some regions have also raised hopes of better crop supply for 2013.

In the “new normal” of high and volatile food prices, millions will continue to suffer from poor nutrition, whether it is hunger, undernutrition or obesity which can cause premature death. In 2008, the number of overweight adults was 1.46 billion, of which 508 million were obese. Even conservative estimates see that number rising to 2.16 billion for overweight adults and nearly doubling to 1.12 billion for obese by 2030 across all regions and in countries like China and India.

Despite the gravity of the problem, it is not evident that reducing obesity is among the top global policy priorities, the report said. Responses to the obesity epidemic have ranged from doing nothing to trying to promote healthier behaviors through taxes, bans or restrictions on certain foods and awareness campaigns. There have also been extreme cases in Japan where fines have been imposed to employees exceeding certain waistline limits.

“The discussions on the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals, along with the UN high-level meeting on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases offer an unprecedented opportunity for integrated global and national collective action to fight all forms of malnutrition, from stunting to obesity,” Canuto said.

“In line with the UN Secretary-General’s Zero Hunger Challenge, and in close collaboration with our development partners, we agree that nothing less than the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition is what we should be striving for,” said José Graziano da Silva, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Opening the global consultation on hunger, food security and nutrition in the post-2015 development agenda, held in Rome on Monday, Mr. Graziano da Silva urged the international community to commit to the complete eradication of hunger in setting its development priorities beyond 2015.

Halving the proportion of hungry people in the world by 2015 was among the targets within the eight MDGs. Some 50 countries are on track to achieve this target, the Director-General noted.

Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive-Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), urged countries to continue to work together to make hunger “the world’s number one solvable problem.”

Meanwhile, Carlos Serè, Chief Development Strategist of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), emphasized that “investing in the sustainable development of rural areas and in inclusive rural growth,” with a focus on smallholder agriculture, is critical for global food security and to the whole post-2015 agenda.

The one-day consultation called for including a focus on nutrition in the post-2015 development agenda, as well as for dealing with the different dimensions of under-nutrition and the fast-growing problems of obesity and related non-communicable diseases, according to a news release issued by FAO.

It also stressed, among other things, that food security and nutrition represent the cornerstone for progress on other development fronts such as employment, education, the environment and health and in achieving a quality future for humankind, the agency reported.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Zero Hunger Challenge, first proposed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil last June, aims for a future where every individual has adequate nutrition. Its five objectives are to make sure that everyone in the world has access to enough nutritious food all year long; to end childhood stunting; to build sustainable food systems; to double the productivity and income of smallholder farmers, especially women; and to prevent food from being lost or wasted.

“Our partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has helped save millions of lives worldwide across decades of collaboration,” said WFP’s Executive Director, Ertharin Cousin, as she wrapped up a two-day visit to the Kingdom.

She noted that Saudi Arabia has been extremely generous to WFP with a historic pledge of $500 million to feed the millions of people affected by the food crisis that hit the world in 2008, the agency said in a news release.

During the visit, her first to the Gulf region since she assumed her position in April, Cousin met with the Crown Prince, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who serves as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence.

She expressed her gratitude and appreciation for King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and for the generosity and the long-standing partnership between the country and WFP in fighting hunger around the world.

WFP honoured King Abdullah in 2009 for his generous support of the agency’s work with its highest award by naming him ‘Champion in the Battle Against Hunger.’

Saudi Arabia contributes over 4,000 metric tons of dates to WFP annually, in addition to responding to emergency funding appeals in troubled spots around the world. The agency has received over $1 billion from the Kingdom to fight hunger since the early 1960s.

Cousin also met with the Minister of Agriculture, Fahd Bin Abdulrahman Bin Sulaiman Balghunaim, and discussed with him shared interests in WFP’s response to emergencies in the region, and especially Yemen, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia values the partnership that we have with WFP and we will continue to work together collaboratively so no child goes hungry across the globe,” said the Minister.

In addition, Ms. Cousin briefed several senior government officials on the food security situation in the region and WFP operations worldwide.

Speaking at a week-long meeting of the World Cooperatives Congress in Manchester, England, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, told gathered delegates that cooperatives can help small- and medium-scale farmers and fishermen add value to their production and gain access to wider markets.

“Cooperatives follow core values and principles that are critical to doing business in an equitable manner, that seeks to empower and benefits its members and the community it is inserted in,” said Graziano da Silva.

“This is especially relevant in poor rural communities, where joining forces is central to promoting sustainable local development,” he added.

Graziano da Silva stated that in a world that produces enough food for all and despite gains in the fight against hunger, it was “unacceptable” that close to 870 million people continue to suffer from chronic malnutrition. He further stated that greater cooperativization would help reduce hunger and poverty across poor rural communities.

“Whether you are in the UK, Brazil, Kenya, Thailand, or Nepal, cooperatives help to generate employment, boost national economies and reduce poverty,” he noted. “This, in turn, helps to improve food security.”

The FAO chief emphasized that his agency was committed to fostering the growth of agricultural cooperatives around the world and hinted at the appointment of special ambassadors for cooperatives to promote the issue, as well as develop approaches, guidelines, methodologies and training tools on organizational development and policy.

Moreover, he called on those gathered to contribute to the global plan of action expected to emerge from events held in honour of the International Year of Cooperatives – a year-long celebration currently being observed in 2012.

With as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger in Africa, it comes as a surprise that food can not move more freely between African countries, expecially from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages.

The new World Bank report Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples says that Africa’s farmers can potentially grow enough food to feed the continent if countries remove cross-border restrictions on the food trade within the region. According to the Bank, the continent would also generate an extra US$20 billion in yearly earnings if African leaders can agree to dismantle trade barriers. The report was released on the eve of an African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade.

According to the report, rapid urbanization will challenge the ability of farmers to ship their cereals and other foods to consumers if the nearest trade market is across a national border.

“Africa has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent’s families,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “However, this potential is not being realized because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to markets than anywhere else in the world. Too often borders get in the way of getting food to homes and communities which are struggling with too little to eat.”

The new report states that if the continent’s leaders can embrace a more dynamic inter-regional trade, Africa’s farmers could potentially meet the continent’s rising demand and benefit from a major growth opportunity. It would also create more jobs in services such as distribution, while reducing poverty and cutting back on expensive food imports.

Moreover, the new report notes that only five percent of all cereals imported by African countries come from other African countries while huge tracts of fertile land, around 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated.

In Africa, also poor roads blunt progress. What is more, transport cartels are still common across Africa, and there are no incentives to invest in modern trucks and logistics. The World Bank report suggests that countries in West Africa in particular could halve their transport costs within 10 years if they adopted policy reforms that spurred more competition within the region.

Other obstacles to greater African trade include export and import bans, restrictive rules of origin, and price controls. These policies are also poorly communicated to traders and officials; and this process in turn promotes confusion at border crossings.

Authorities are called to promote the establishment of a competitive market which will enhance food production and food distribution networks. The reports notes that competitive food market will help poor people the most. A good food distribution networks would benefit poor farmers and poor consumers and avoid, for example, that poor people in the slums of Nairobi pay more for their maize, rice, and other staple food than wealthy people pay for the same products in local supermarkets.

“The key challenge for the continent is how to create a competitive environment in which governments embrace credible and stable policies that encourage private investors and businesses to boost food production across the region.” said Paul Brenton, World Bank’s Lead Economist for Africa and principal author of the report.

For the time being, the World Bank Group’s continues to support trade and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The Bank is recognized as a key source of knowledge on trade policy issues, analysis and investments for trade-related infrastructure at the country level.

The institution’s agriculture support for Africa has grown significantly over the past decade. The share of trade-related lending in total Bank lending, for example, has grown from an average of two percent in FY03 to five percent in FY12. New trade-related commitments in FY13 are expected to increase to US$3 billion, 70 percent of which will go to Africa.