To give young minds added inspiration, FAO has teamed up with the well-known Italian illustrator and designer Lorenzo Terranera to create a companion picture book

As part of a global call for submission, the Representation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Iran invites all creative Iranian children and youth to take part in the World Food Day 2016 international poster and video contest.

The theme of this year’s World Food Day (WFD) is "Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must change too," and talented youth with skills in painting, graphic design and videography are encouraged to take part.

Children and youth aged 5 to 19 are encouraged to familiarize themselves with  WFD 2016 theme and utilize their outmost creativity and imagination to create – manually or digitally – unique poster designs. The manually sketched outcomes are to be scanned and digitally submitted by the deadline. Similarly, youth aged 13-19 can also participate in the contest by creating a video clip with a length of no more than one minute and uploading it on YouTube using the hashtag #WFD2016VideoContest. Participants in the video contest must also register their information on the official link provided below.

The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2016.

To be considered for the competition, participants must visit www.fao.org/WFD2016-Contest, click on either poster orvideo contest links, submit their personal details (in English) and upload their pieces in the provided space.

As the number of global population is expected to grow to over 9 billion by 2050, FAO estimates a need for an approximate 60 percent rise in global food production to make up for this drastic increase in demand. This need occurs as droughts, rising-temperatures and climate change-related disasters continue to have the most impact on the world’s small-scale and family farmers; those who happen to be the main producers of our foods.

In this way, FAO has picked “Climate is changing. Food and Agriculture must Change too” as the main theme and slogan for the  World Food Day2016; with the hope of using this platform to advocate for a change in the model of food and agriculture production, which takes into consideration climate change realities, and strengthen the implementation of smart agriculture practices.

The WFD poster and video competition gives a chance to interested youth and children to visualize and share their ideas on the links between climate change and food and agriculture production, along with the phenomenon of global hunger.

World Food Day is celebrated annually by FAO on October 16 – in commemorating the founding of the organization in 1945. World Food Day is celebrated across the world in 150 countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, where all stakeholders in the food production industry come together in commemoration of the occasion. This is why this day is considered a renowned and important occasion on the United Nations annual calendar of events.