Celebrating our Food Heroes: harvesting the power of innovative thinking to enact change

FAO’s flagship international observance – World Food Day – convened inspiring change makers and speakers at today’s virtual event from New York, where food system champions and allies tapped on the power of individual actions and collective resolve to end hunger and care for our planet

15 October, New York – World Food Day celebrations across the globe started today and will continue into tomorrow, 16 October, which marks the founding anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). The international observance is a unique opportunity to commend the voices and milestones of our Food Heroes, whose innovative thinking and drive are helping shift the narrative on food to transform agri-food systems for a more prosperous food future for all. 

Guided by the theme “Our actions are out future: Better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life,” it was a timely opportunity this year to build on the momentum of the Food Systems Summit and the World Food Forum, both of which envision the empowerment of global youth.

Today’s World Food Day event from New York – co-organized by the Permanent Representations of Argentina and New Zealand to the UN and the Rome-based agencies – encouraged participants to tap into the potential behind individual actions that help rethink the way our food is produced, transported, marketed, consumed and discarded, with science, technology and innovation driving these efforts.

“In a world where there continues to be alarming hunger and malnutrition rates, it is our obligation at the United Nations to make the fight against hunger a daily task, 365 days a year,” Ambassador María del Carmen Squeff of Argentina said.

The sentiment was echoed by Ambassador Craig Hawke of New Zealand. 

“On World Food Day, we recommit the importance of food in achieving the sustainable development goals. The recent UN Food Systems Summit demonstrated that people across the world care deeply about transforming our food systems. We must now seize this momentum and support countries’ domestic pathways,” he added.

The President of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and Permanent Representative of Botswana to the United Nations, and the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations sent video messages to commemorate the day’s celebration.

Working for people and planet: food as a cornerstone of our shared prosperity

Opening and moderating the event was FAO Chief Scientist Ismahane Elouafi, who welcomed today’s virtual gathering as a platform to showcase systems thinking in action on the road to feeding a growing population while nurturing our planet’s fragile ecosystems and resources.

“Let us adopt a systems-thinking approach to feeding our growing population and nurture our planet with less inputs. In responding to emergencies, we must also build forward better and ensure long-term resilience in our agri-food systems. To do this, we must change how we produce and consume food,” she said, calling for our commitments to be spoken and implemented into reality.

Today’s event also reaffirmed the pledge for a Zero Hunger world, which is based on, and driven by, efforts to ensure better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life. Understanding food security and nutrition as a system of actors, ideas and solutions is at the heart of FAO’s efforts, leaving no one behind.

Rewriting the story of food

Sharing their inspiring innovations in action were four changemakers, whose outside-the-box thinking is helping people consume more responsibly, produce more sustainably, and ensure harmony with our planet and its vital biodiversity and ecosystems.

Patricia Gomes of Imaflora, the co-winner of the 2019 International Innovation Award for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, presented her organization’s work promoting environmental harmony, forest conservation, and the respect of traditional and indigenous knowledge, including through the Origens Brasil network promoting new business models in the Amazon within protected areas. In turn, Alexandra Spieldoch from Bountifield International, co-winner of the youth category of the 2021 International Innovation Award for Sustainable Food Systems, spoke of championing postharvest solutions to reduce hunger and poverty through decreased loss, improved outputs, and increased local food supplies across Africa. 

Next up was Mustapha Diyaol-Haqq of Okuafo Foundation, a social enterprise providing farmers across West Africa with low-cost precision agriculture services, including through the use of artificial intelligence for early pest detection. Closing the dialogue session was Viktoria Slivkoff from Extreme Tech Challenge, the world’s largest global platform showcasing the most innovative, purpose-driven startup, empowering startups to innovate across ten categories inspired by the SDGs. Extreme Tech Challenge was a strategic partner in the World Food Forum (WFF) Startup Innovation Awards.

Nourishing innovative ideas for human and planetary health and wealth

With the Food Systems behind us, its calls to action are all the more relevant moving forward – building a better tomorrow should propel our voices, actions and commitments. Part of the solution is working alongside our Food Heroes, helping create an enabling environment for an agri-food systems transformation through which we share applicable knowledge and actionable solutions.

In this respect, today’s New York World Food Day event helped showcase a vision for how technology, innovation, data, and improved governance, human capital, and institutions can work together to inspire revolutionary change across food systems.

This sentiment resounded in the words of astronaut and FAO Goodwill Ambassador Thomas Pesquet, who delivered a message from space ahead of World Food Day, inviting people on Earth to be kinder to our planet, starting with reflecting on, and innovating across, the journey of food.

On behalf of the Rome-based Agencies, Paul Skoczylas, Deputy Director, Division for the UN System and Multilateral Engagement, WFP New York, stressed that "Without action nothing will change. That's why action has been the primary focus to the UN Food Systems Summit and in the follow up that has been tasked to us by the UN Secretary-General to the RBAs".

The FAO Chief Scientist echoed his remarks and made a call “… to roll up our sleeves and get into action. Let us work together to follow through on transformative pathways, based on national priorities and conditions, that deliver better outcomes for the people and the planet”.

Related links

• Did you miss the event? Watch the recording and revisit the event's dedicated website.
• Don’t miss the global World Food Day 2021 video and get to know our 2021 Food Heroes!
• Find out how you can stay engaged during World Food Day and beyond.