Governments should mark World Food Day every day

The second World Food Day under a deadly pandemic has come and gone (on Saturday, October 16). It is an understatement that World Food Day 2021 was severely marked by Covid-19. The pandemic has affected the notion of food security and indeed the complacent western belief that there will always be enough of everything — flour, pasta, chicken, beef, vegetables and crisp salad — in the supermarkets, so long as you have the money to buy it.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN agency whose founding is marked by World Food Day, the pandemic-induced recession could add at least 100 million to the 690 million people already suffering from hunger. The new numbers highlight a stark reality — World Food Day is much more than a meaningless anniversary.

As Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, recently noted, the second World Food Day under the pall of a pandemic reinforces the need for “deeper international cooperation” and the fact that…