Cairo, Egypt - Today, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO marked the World Food Day, celebrated this year under the theme “our actions are our future: Healthy diets for a #ZeroHunger World”. Celebrations this year highlight the action to make healthy diets available and call for faster and more ambitious actions across sectors to achieve SDG2.

The WFD ceremony was held under the patronage of H.E. the Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Ezzedin Abu Steit and attended by Nasredin Hag Elamin, FAO Representative in Egypt; a large number of FAO officials and other UN agency representatives; Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation officials; and representatives of the Agricultural Research Centre, Desert Research Centre, civil society, as well as academic and media institutions.

In his speech during the ceremony, H.E. Dr. Abu Steit, stressed that there is a big problem of malnutrition among children, especially in villages, and that the imbalanced food and lack of physical activity lead to an increase in mortality. Moreover, overweight and obesity exist nowadays in most developed countries as well as developing countries.

“The high percentage of people suffering from overweight and obesity results from many negative eating habits such as having fast foods and sugary drinks, especially for children and adolescents. It also results from skipping breakfast and having high calorie snacks between meals, especially in school. We can also mention the high percentage of people eating outside their homes, which exposes them to high calorie meals loaded with fats. What makes the problem more complicated is the fact that we rely much more on modern transportation, we watch television most of the time while sitting, not to forget the Internet and computer games, in addition to lack of movement and physical activities,” Said the Minister.

“The 100 million-health campaign revealed that about 19.7 million Egyptian citizens are overweight, which calls for an urgent action for prevention and treatment. Such action involves developing healthy behaviours to maintain healthy weight and active physical activities to develop healthy diets. In fact, there is a need to not only provide food for citizens, but to provide them with nutritional meals, which means to eat more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, dairy, nuts and proteins that are low in saturated fat and reduce the percentage of sugar, snacks, drinks, excess salt and processed meat”, he continued.

The Minister emphasized the fact that MALR took the lead in developing the Egyptian agriculture which requires providing a safe and sound climate, in addition to public support for the developmental efforts through partnership with the private sector and civil organizations. In fact, the country adopted the process of developing consumption patterns to improve nutrition levels and to increase the individual share from food commodities with high nutritional value. It has also developed social safety nets, and provided reasonable quality food to vulnerable and poor families, especially women and children to ensure their consumption of sufficient healthy and nutritious food.

“The Sustainable Development Strategy" – SDS Egypt 2030 "allocated a large section of its plan and objectives for agriculture, specifically for the small farmers and agricultural labor as there is a plan to promote all elements involved in the agricultural system, along with the value-added agricultural products, especially the ones with high value. This development will start from the product delivery through the different stages of manufacturing and marketing in a way that adds a higher value and an optimal price to the product. It is also worth mentioning that this plan provides appropriate methods for agricultural exploitation to achieve optimum possibilities, to ultimately increase production and raise its market value in order maximize the profitability of low-income farms and eliminate poverty in rural communities,“ said the Minister.

In a speech delivered on behalf of Mr. Qu Dongyu, FAO-Director General, Mr. Nasredin Hag Elamin said:” This year’s WFD echoes messages raised in the UN’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2019) and calls for action to make healthy diets available and affordable to all, with the slogan “Our actions are our future. Healthy diets for a #ZeroHunger world”. The campaign calls for faster and more ambitious actions across sectors to achieve SDG.

SOFI 2019 tells us that the number of undernourished people in the world is increasing. More than 820 million people do not have enough to eat, among them are more than 50 million people in the Near East and North Africa region, but at the same time overweight and obesity continue to increase in all regions, particularly among school-age children and adults.

He continued to add:” Our current food systems are failing to ensure food security for all, or to deliver on healthy diets. The way our food systems currently work, from agricultural production to processing and retailing, contributes to environmental degradation. Intensified food production, combined with climate change, is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity. Today only nine plant species account for 66% of total crop production despite the fact that throughout history, more than 6000 species have been cultivated for food. A diverse variety of crops is crucial for providing healthy diets and safeguarding the environment.

Malnutrition in all its forms is a pervasive issue worldwide, imposing unacceptably high economic and social costs on all countries. The impact on the global economy is estimated at USD 3.5 trillion per year. This is a clear demonstration that our current food system is not sustainable. We need to change our focus from producing more food to producing more healthy food.

Hag Elamin stressed that the conditions and challenges faced by Egypt require moving to more sustainable food systems, and to invest more in agricultural and food systems, in addition to spending more money on research and development of the agricultural and food supply chains in order to promote innovation and support increased sustainable production.

During the WFD ceremony, a FAO-produced documentary on improving nutrition was shown. The Minister of Agriculture also honoured a number of people for their efforts in the field of agricultural development. An exhibition of FAO publications was organized on the sidelines of the ceremony.