5 Facts About Hunger for World Food Day

October 16 is World Food Day.

World Food Day commemorates the founding of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It’s not just an anniversary, though. The goal of World Food Day is to promote worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and for the need to ensure food security and nutritious diets for all.

At BiOWiSH, we believe all people should have access to healthy, safe food. Unfortunately, hunger affects millions of people globally. In honor of World Food Day, we wanted to take the time to share some facts about hunger.

Here are five things you should know about world hunger from FAO:

1. One in nine people in the world are suffering from hunger right now. That’s about 800 million.
2. Hunger can be deadly: every year, it kills more people than malaria, tuberculosis, and aids combined.
3. Most of the world’s extreme poor – about 80% – live in rural areas and depend on agriculture. Food insecurity threatens peoples lives and the way they make a living.
4. Malnutrition doesn’t just cost lives – it also costs money. The cost of malnutrition to the global economy is the equivalent of USD 3.5 trillion a year.
5. The demand for food is expected to rise with our growing population. The UN estimates we will need to produce 60 percent more food by 2050.

Here’s the good news: FAO is working hard to provide access to food for all people, especially those in rural and developing places.

Even better – they have been successful. 72 of the 129 countries they monitor have cut the proportion of people who are experiencing hunger in half. World Food Day is a great time to reflect on how far we have come to address world hunger, and raise awareness of the work that still needs to be done.

As food demand continues to rise, agriculture will keep evolving. BiOWiSH is proud to be a part of that evolution. We have developed technology that can help produce more high quality, healthy food for people around the world.

From our beginning, BiOWiSH has been committed to finding sustainable solutions to big problems like food insecurity. Our sustainable solutions can increase crop yield and improve livestock gains in a wide range of conditions – from Vietnam to Nigeria to the midwestern fields close to our headquarters.

From the BiOWiSH family, we hope you have a wonderful – and delicious – World Food Day.