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Press Release 98/16
FAO ANNOUNCES THEME FOR WORLD FOOD DAY 1998:
"WOMEN FEED THE WORLD"
Rome, March 8 -- "Women Feed the World" is to be the
theme of this year's 18th observance of World Food Day, the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today
on the occasion of International Women's Day.
Chosen to highlight the significant contribution women
make toward household and national food security, the theme
will also be the focus of FAO's TeleFood hunger awareness
and fund-raising event.
"When given the opportunities and resources, women have
proven to be active partners in development: efficient,
dynamic and open to innovations. They represent a formidable
potential that could help in meeting the challenges of food
security in the 21st century," said FAO Director-General
Jacques Diouf.
The role of women in agriculture was underscored at the
1996 World Food Summit, where 186 countries, signing the
Summit's Global Plan of Action, agreed to ensure an enabling
political, social and economic environment designed to
create the best conditions for the eradication of poverty
and for durable peace, based on full and equal participation
of women and men.
According to FAO, globally, women produce more than half
of all the food grown. In Africa, they produce up to 80
percent of all basic foodstuffs and they provide between 50
to 90 percent of the labor for rice cultivation in Asia.
Women in rural areas are almost exclusively responsible for
the nutrition of their children. Women are also the
principal producers and processors of food for their
families. Women also spend a significant part of their
household income -- a much larger part proportionately than
men -- on buying additional food for the family, says FAO.
In much of the world, women spend up to five hours a day
collecting firewood and water and up to four hours preparing
food. In addition, says FAO, rural women provide a
significant amount of the labor for farming. After harvest
they are almost exclusively responsible for operations such
as storage, handling, stocking, marketing and processing.
With more men migrating to urban areas in search of work,
women carry an even heavier burden as they also become the
head of household. In some regions of Africa, 60 percent of
households are now headed by women.
Despite their contribution to food security, women's work
is poorly understood and underestimated, according to FAO.
Work in the household is often considered part of a woman's
duties as wife and mother, not an occupation to be accounted
for in the national economy. Outside the house, a great deal
of rural women's labor goes unpaid. In most countries women
do not own the land they work and when they do, it tends to
be smaller, less valuable plots.
Prevailing attitudes make the plight of rural women worse
by denying them political power and social representation,
states FAO. Gender-biased legal and social structures and
illiteracy, are other factors that prevent women from
improving their economic situation, thus increasing the
feminization of poverty. Since the 1970s, the number of
women living below the poverty line has increased by 50
percent, in comparison with 30 percent for their male
counterparts
World Food Day and TeleFood form the vanguard of FAO's
follow-up to the World Food Summit, in which FAO was charged
with raising public awareness on the issues of food security
and mobilizing people to work to end world hunger,
malnutrition and food insecurity.
World Food Day, marking the founding of FAO on October
16, 1945 in Quebec City, Canada, is observed annually in
about 150 countries. Telefood was launched last year as part
of the follow-up to the World Food Summit and was recently
endorsed by FAO's 175 nation governing Conference, which
called for the continuation and expansion of TeleFood. All
money raised through TeleFood goes entirely to small grass
roots projects in low-income food-deficit countries around
the world, including FAO's Special Programme for Food
Security.
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