This year’s World Food Day
celebration is highlighting
the concrete ways in which agricultural cooperatives and producer organizations
help to provide food security, generate employment, and reduce poverty.
The theme for the October 16
event is “Agricultural cooperatives: key to feeding the world”.
The
UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is paying special tribute to cooperatives for working against hunger and
overcoming market and policy constraints by providing their members access to a
range of assets and services.
In Ghana, producer groups,
cooperatives, farmer organizations as well as agricultural partners are commemorating
the day in the Central region.
FAO-Ghana Country Representative,
Musa Saihou Mbenga, in a statement observed that the structure of the Ghanaian
agricultural system is changing rapidly, hence the need for independent
producers to vertically coordinate their production through the agricultural
system to maximise returns.
“Cooperatives comprise an
important and growing part of this changing agricultural industry. Due to the
singularity of member owned-member managed, cooperatives have the ability to
solve various market problems facing the agricultural producers”, he said.
The
World Food Day has the objectives of encouraging attention to agricultural food
production and to stimulate national, bilateral, multilateral and
non-governmental efforts to this end; encourage economic and technical
cooperation among developing countries; and encourage the participation of
rural people, particularly women and the least privileged categories, in
decisions and activities influencing their living conditions.
It
is also a day to heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in the
world; promote the transfer of technologies to the developing world; and
strengthen international and national solidarity in the struggle against
hunger, malnutrition and poverty and draw attention to achievements in food and
agricultural development.
No comments:
Post a Comment