The Asia and Pacific Region has made good progress in achieving the Millennium Development Hunger Goal by 2015 and is moving towards eradicating hunger by 2025 through the implementation of the Zero Hunger Challenge. However, malnutrition remains a serious concern, said Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO’s Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific at a World Food Day event in Bangkok.

Globally, one person in every eight is undernourished. One out of four children in the world under the age of five is stunted. Indeed, 165 million of these children are so undernourished they will never reach their physical and intellectual potential.

Micronutrient deficiency affects some two billion people worldwide, or more than 30 percent of global population. Some 60 percent of the world’s undernourished people live in the Asia - Pacific region. “High food prices, which remain nearly 50 percent higher in real terms than a decade ago, make poor people more vulnerable,” Konuma said.

Paradoxically, worldwide, “1.4 billion people are overweight and 500 million of them are obese and face serious risks of non-communicable diseases,” added Konuma, referring to afflictions such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

But World Food Day is also an opportunity to acknowledge the success stories. At today’s regional ceremony held at FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand presented FAO awards to four model farmers from Bhutan, the Philippines, Thailand and Tonga. The awards honoured their outstanding achievements in agriculture and food production. The honourees were: Sithar Dendup from Bhutan, Myrna Conmigo Asor from the Philippines, Jarun Jaroensab from Thailand and Malia Sosefo Guttenbeil from Tonga.

In a speech, Her Royal Highness highlighted the challenges ahead for Asia and the Pacific:  “Increased urbanization has led to the emergence of a growing retail sector including fast food restaurants, street foods, hawker centres and organized retail outlets such as super and hyper-markets with a high concentration of ready-to-eat foods, which along with an unhealthy lifestyle may contribute to overweight or obesity.”

Her Royal Highness added that “ultimately it is education and awareness which plays an important role in helping consumers make healthier choices. Thailand, in its National Food Policy and Strategy, places high priority on consumer awareness and education and will continue to do so.”

The Asia-Pacific observance of World Food Day included a keynote address by Noeleen Heyzer, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

“As policy-makers, political leaders, captains of industry, development champions, and even just as human beings, we share the responsibility to end hunger in our lifetime,” said Heyzer. “We are the only generation which has ever had the means to do so – and we are now presented with a window opportunity to shape the post-2015 development agenda. But, we have to act urgently to mobilize investment, science, policies, institutions, and communities. Our legacy will be defined by how we rise to this challenge, and whether we succeed in finally making hunger history.”

Other dignitaries at World Food Day included Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, H.E. Yukol Limlamthong, other senior Thai government officials, Bangkok-based members of the diplomatic corps, representatives of UN agencies and civil society organizations.

This year’s World Food Day theme is Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition, reflecting the FAO concept that healthy people depend on healthy food systems. A food system is composed of the environment, people, institutions and processes by which agricultural products are produced, processed and delivered to consumers. Every aspect of the food system affects the final availability and accessibility of diverse, nutritious food and the ability of consumers to choose healthy diets.

The theme underscores two important points: first, that malnutrition in all its forms – undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity – imposes very high social and economic costs on countries at all income levels. And second, that better management of the entire food system starting from production, including post-harvest, processing, distribution, storage and retailing, can contribute significantly to food security and nutrition.

World Food Day 2013 marks the 68th anniversary of the founding of FAO in Quebec City, Canada on 16 October 1945.