World Food Day Focuses On Cooperatives To Ease Problems

Wheat is harvested in Shirak province, Armenia in August.

UN-sponsored World Food Day, the annual event to draw attention to global hunger, malnutrition, and poverty, is being marked around the world.

The theme of this year’s observance is “Agricultural cooperatives -- key to feeding the world.”

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says the theme was chosen to highlight the role of cooperatives -- or voluntary associations of people who work together for their common benefit -- in improving food security and contributing to the eradication of hunger.

The UN’s latest hunger report, released this month, warns that nearly 870 million people around the world, or one in eight people on the planet, suffered from chronic undernourishment in 2010-12.

It says the vast majority of the hungry, 852 million, live in developing countries, while 16 million people are undernourished in developed countries.

With additional reporting by AFP