A reflection on food security, lifestyles and efforts to reduce waste in a world in which 12.5% of the population is still under-nourished: this is the aim of the numerous initiatives the foreign ministry is promoting for 15 October – World Food Day.
The key moment will be the conference “Nourish the Earth. Cultivate the Future”, to be held at the Ara Pacis in Rome, in which Italian and foreign experts will include economists and representatives of governments and the UN’s food and agriculture agencies (FAO-IFAD-WFO), and the Italian Ministers of Health and Foreign Affairs, Renato Balduzzi and Giulio Terzi, who will deliver the closing speeches.
Struggle against hunger and malnutrition
The goal, Italian Cooperation Director General Elisabetta Belloni explained to journalists, is to raise public awareness of the struggle against hunger and malnutrition, which “in the globalised world can cause imbalances”, for example by generating “mass migrations” and conflicts “for the control of land” in a South of the world poor in resources.
Presented during the conference – promoted in collaboration with the Italian permanent mission to the UN in Rome and “Roma InConTra” – will be a project called “Growth”, a fund-raising effort via text message for the communities of the Mwingi district of Kenya suffering from drought.