RIYADH, 19 October 2007 — A Run-for-Food race in Rome on Sunday will be one of the highlights of the World Food Day with the theme, “The Right to Food,” that was observed by over 150 countries, including the Kingdom, as part of month-long celebrations that started on Oct.16.
The FAO is celebrating the World Food Day events with the theme “The Right to Food,” described as the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. It is the right to feed oneself in dignity, rather than the right to be fed. With more than 850 million people still deprived of enough food, the right to food is not just economically, morally and politically imperative, it is also seen as a legal obligation.
Among other events, Spain will kick off a month of activities to mark World Food Day and host a fund-raising television gala. The Spanish soccer league will dedicate two weeks of games with the participation of FAO Goodwill Ambassador and Real Madrid Captain Raúl Gonzalez. In Africa, a 10-day Arab Music Festival dedicated to FAO and its fight against hunger, a fund-raising gala dinner, seminars and major exhibitions will take place in Cairo.
Minister of Agriculture Dr. Fahd Balghonaim highlighted here the importance of the day and the role that the Kingdom has played in boosting its agricultural production and donating part of it as aid for people in the developing countries.
The minister said Saudi Arabia’s total material and cash contributions to the World Food Program (WFP), since its establishment in 1963, stood at more $453 million. “Last year’s Saudi contributions to the program reached approximately $34 million,” he added.
Pointing out that the agricultural growth rate had averaged six percent during the period 1970-2007, the minister said the sector’s GDP shot up from SR1.03 billion to more than SR39.9 billion during the same period.
According to a newly published Saudi Arabia Food & Drink Report for the last quarter of 2006, the government’s agricultural policy is starting to bear fruit, as the sector has begun to export both crops and agricultural products. The Kingdom now produces more than 1.2m tons of milk and 167,000 tons of red meat as well as 67,000 tons of various types of seafood.
The industry should get a further boost from FAO which announced this quarter that it has approved $60 milion worth of funds for 14 projects which will provide technical support to the Kingdom’s local development sectors over the next five years.
These funds will go toward strengthening existing programs, as well as funding new projects, which include improved water management, irrigated agriculture, and those that address the issues of small-scale farmers in rural areas.
While the Riyadh-based FAO Coordination Office will oversee the new projects, they will be financed by the Saudi government.
A special World Food Day event was expected to be held at the UN headquarters in New York today with a monologue by actress Gabriele Loneck on the speeches and writings of former American President Eleanor Roosevelt on Human Rights and the Right to Food, a teleconference in Washington D.C. and national-level activities, besides a series of sports and musical events in Spain and other countries over the coming weeks.
