World Food Day highlights role of agricultural cooperatives in fighting hunger
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Nashiriek Melongoli plants maize seeds in Mswagini village
Agricultural cooperatives could make a greater contribution to combating poverty and hunger provided they are given proper support by governments, civil society and academia.
That's the message from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for World Food Day, observed annually on 16 October.
This year's theme is 'Agricultural cooperatives: Key to feeding the world' and FAO is urging governments to create conditions which would allow these organizations to thrive.
Siobhan Kelly is an Agribusiness Economist at FAO in Rome.
"Recently a lot of governments in Africa for instance Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, for instance, have been reviewing their policies with respect to farm organizations and looking at and viewing farm organizations as a key actor in developing and modernizing their food systems. So, yeah, I think we're definitely moving in the right direction." (Duration: 30″)
Recent FAO figures show that despite the number of hungry people declining by 132 million compared to 20 years ago, nearly 870 million people worldwide still go hungry every day.
