Around 925 million people do not have enough to eat, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, with 70 per cent of those people living in rural areas where agriculture is the main source of income. To help highlight potential solutions to this crisis, the FAO has declared this year’s World Food Day theme as Agricultural Co-operatives: key to feeding the world.
The day, which will be held on 16 October, will highlight how co-operatives and producer organisations help to pull people out of poverty and hunger. Co-operatives help farmers increase their bargaining power, and improve their skills and education. These are vital tools for remote rural poor, who have little access to good resources and information.
Co-ops have already been successful across the world. In Thailand small farmers were forced to use a middleman when selling their goods. When trying to grow the large quantities and assortments of vegetables wanted by the wholesalers — much of their stock would spoil due to poor storage and transport.
In 1986, their lives changed. A company called Swift Co Ltd organised the farmers into democratic groups: one member, one vote. The groups grow predetermined types and quantities of fruit and vegetables, and the middleman was removed to get a better fixed-price for their produce. This is an example highlighted by the FAO of co-operation working at a grass roots level. Though co-ops have been successful in the developing world, there is still work to do.
The FAO released a paper on the subject. It reads: “On World Food Day 2012, let us resolve to give co-operatives a helping hand, enabling them to overcome constraints and play their full role in the drive to end hunger and poverty.”
It argues that the world needs to bring together key stakeholders such as national governments, development agencies, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations to help overcome challenges co-operatives faces in terms of scale and scope.
The paper “recommends that governments and policy makers put in place the right policies, transparent legislation, incentives and opportunities for dialogue, because all of these are necessary conditions for co-operatives and producer organisations to develop and grow".
In the world today there are one billion co-operative members; the work of World Food Day is hoping to create many more while also changing the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
• To get involved in World Food Day, visit: www.fao.org/getinvolved/worldfoodday/en/
