World Food Day celebrations was commemorated yesterday at the Uluda grounds in Rakiraki marking the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

World Food Day is commemorated on 16th October each year and is one of the most celebrated days in the UN Calendar marking the date of the founding of UN FAO in 1945. 

Officiating at the event, Minister for Agriculture Hon Dr Mahendra Reddy said World Food Day is especially celebrated by organisations that play a pivotal role in the provision of safe and nutritious food security and assist in the achievement of zero hunger! Such organisations include, UNFAO, World Food Program (WFP), Ministry of Agriculture and Live and Learn and other organisations. 

"This year the theme for the celebrations is, “Leave No One behind” and the priorities set to achieve the theme are, better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life.” 

"The Agriculture sector continues to reflect growth over the years. From 2018-2020, the value of non-sugarcane Agriculture GDP grew at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 4.9%. This was an increase from FJD686.8 million in 2018 to FJD756.1 million 2020'" said Hon. Reddy.

Minister Reddy elaborated that this growth was influenced by commodities such as Kava, Dalo, Ginger, and other vegetables.

"Trade on fresh produce also performed positively in the last 3 years (2019-2021). Since 2019, value and volume of total export of fresh and chilled produce continue to grow at an annual average growth rate of 16.8% and 11.0% respectively. In 2020, for the first time, agriculture fresh/chilled export surpass the $100m mark and has continued to increase to $123m in 2021. Agriculture production also continued to increase in the last 3 years (2019-2021) by an average rate of 5.4%," he said.

"The Ministry is committed to support agriculture development that will continue to accelerate the process of transitioning small holder farmers to commercial level.

"At the end of 2021-22 financial year, the ministry had recorded an additional 15,598 farmers in the database which makes up the total number of farmers in Fiji to be 98,993. The increase indicates that more and more people are resorting to Agriculture as their source of livelihood hence, the Ministry is committed to review and refine its approaches to meet this upsurge," Minister Reddy said.

An Agriculture Show was also organized concurrently with the World Food Day celebrations to further highlight the significance of the sector in Fiji's food systems. 

"The Agriculture Shows are the country’s leading food exhibition platforms that has been connecting buyers and sellers (mostly farmers) within the agriculture food systems chain, food service, and hospitality and retail industries for over twenty years. Today’s event is aimed at show casing the Rakiraki communities and the Agriculture food systems value chain to the world. 

"I would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks to our partners involved in organising and supporting this event. To the Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), European Union (EU), Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to Fiji, Ministry of Health and National Food and Nutrition Centre (NFNC), Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts and the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport (MCTTT) and Live and Learn, thank you so much for your overwhelming support.  

Additionally, Hon. Reddy called on development partners to dedicate resources and funding towards building more resilient agriculture infrastructure to boost the sector to realize its full potential.

-Ends-

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