Mark 16 October on your calendar for World Food Day (WFD) 2020! With the theme, “Grow, nourish, sustain. Together. Our Actions are our future.” World Food Day is calling for global solidarity to help all populations, and especially the most vulnerable, to recover from the pandemic, and to make food systems more resilient and robust so they can withstand increasing volatility and climate shocks, deliver affordable and sustainable healthy diets for all, and decent livelihoods for food system workers.

The Communication handbookand othermaterials,such as the promotional video, brochure, children’s Activity Book and poster are available on the World Food Day website(most in the six UN languages plus Italian and Portuguese). To produce material locally, you can download high resolution filesfrom the Asset Bank.

The Director-General has already written to ministries of agriculture asking for their support in promoting the campaign and noting that this year’s celebrations will require exceptional planning - many events will need to either be online or respect physical distancing - but you can always take advantage of your communication channels to promote digital content from the Trello Board.

World Food Day’s global impact would not be possible without the strategic partnerships secured by both FAO offices and Member States with cities, TV stations, outdoor advertisers, transport networks, retail outlets, airports, shopping centres etc. We are asking for your help once again to engage the public in this year’s campaign by sharing the promotional video with media partners.

World Food Day youth material can be used to inspire young people to be change makers and advocates for a hunger-free and sustainable world and to engage young people, their families and educators in FAO’s work. Be sure to check out the Activity Book “Food Heroes” and to share this as well as information on the Poster Contest with your ministry of education and other partners.Youngpeople between the ages of 5 and 19 are being called to  submit a poster of their favourite food hero at work by 6 November 2020.

In fact, this World Food Day we are calling on the public to thank the #FoodHeroes whoproduce, plant, harvest, fish or transport our food and, no matter the circumstances, continue to provide food for their communities and beyond - helping to grow, nourish and sustain our world. Read about Umer, a farmer from northern Pakistan, as we prepare to launch a series of over 20 stories about food heroes around the world on the World Food Day website.

For more information, please contact: [email protected]