October 16, 2024
Every year on October 16, World Food Day, founded in 1979 by the United Nations, aims to raise awareness of hunger and malnutrition, and create an opportunity to promote healthy diets for all. Opportunities to combat hunger and improve nutrition cannot be for a short-term fix. Sustainable solutions are needed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people living in America learned very quickly that our own food supply chain is far from sustainable and is in fact quite frail, and that our safety net is tattered. Thankfully, we had the resources to create additional supports, such as Emergency Allotments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), expanded and inclusive child tax credits, and healthy free school meals for all students, for a true safety net.
However, these supports were happening in the richest, most powerful nation in world history. Worldwide, the United Nations reports, over 2.8 billion people are unable to afford a healthy diet. This is a number so large that we cannot grasp it, let alone understand the scale of hunger all of these people are struggling through in neighborhoods, cities, villages, and even entire countries.
World hunger is unbearable to think about, considering that the United Nations estimated that one–third of the food produced every year is wasted or lost — which not only means people are going hungry despite the world having the food to feed them, but this is also “costing the global economy some $1 trillion per year.” We can do better.
In the U.S., federal nutrition programs like SNAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and various child nutrition programs, in tandem with a network of food banks, pantries, and community organizations, help to feed tens of millions of households. For the most part, 2.8 billion people around the world are bereft of that type of nutritional support. We can do better.
FRAC acknowledges that many of the communities we serve and partner with are deeply affected by hunger abroad, either through familial ties or care for those outside of their communities. This hunger does not exist in a vacuum, but is rooted in stressful and traumatizing situations, including political violence, climate crises, and the withholding of aid for political reasons. As communities across the globe continue to grapple with hunger crises, in Somalia, Haiti, Yemen, and more, and the risk of famine encroaches Sudan and Gaza, FRAC invites its partners to hold space for neighbors, families, coworkers, and perhaps even yourself, who are impacted by the ongoing global hunger crisis and the challenges it poses at home.
We encourage you to create moments to reflect, connect, share, and pursue opportunities to support efforts to address the hunger crisis in regions beyond our own.
This World Food Day, we need to be as empathetic as ever, and affirm that the only hunger that should exist in America and the world is the hunger to do better — for all people.
