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October 16 is World Food Day.

The 20th Session of the Conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization held in November 1979 designated October 16, when the organization was established, as World Food Day and decided to commemorate the day every year.

The designation of World Food Day is aimed at giving a correct understanding of the importance of food problem to all countries and people of the world and, at the same time, encouraging international discussion on the solution to the worldwide food problem, including the elimination of poverty and hunger by boosting food production.

Decades have passed since World Food Day was designated, but the food crisis worsens with the passage of time, threatening mankind. Accordingly, the FAO selected “Innovate today, nourish tomorrow” as the theme for this year’s World Food Day.

Different countries are making positive efforts to overcome the crisis by dint of science and technology and ease the food shortage by doing farming by their own efforts.

Shortly ago, the Lao prime minister said that primary efforts should be directed to increasing agricultural production and ensuring food security, stressing the need to modernize agriculture and strengthen its own sci-tech forces to that end. In the country, agricultural output has reportedly increased by 2.75 percent each year over the past five years.

The president of Ghana said that the core of the state's long-term goals for the transition to a more productive and diversified economy is to build a modern agriculture, adding that the agricultural sector should promote its digitization, scientification and industrialization.

Indonesia will start a project to establish irrigation systems in 12 000 areas throughout the country this year according to the infrastructure construction plan of its government aimed at realizing self-sufficiency in food. Another project has now been undertaken to reclaim farmland from about one million hectares of wetland according to the government’s plan for boosting food production.

The DPRK also dynamically presses on with a programme to put agricultural production and management activities on a scientific basis by utilizing latest information technology and information communication means. An information system for the management in the field of agriculture has been established, making it possible to give unified and scientific guidance on farming across the country and positive efforts are directed to steadily raising its level.

With the nutrient cold seedling cultivation technology having been widely introduced into many farms across the country in recent years, the scientists of the Academy of Agricultural Science succeeded in introducing the technology into the tideland-turned rice fields with high salinity this year, providing a scientific and technological guarantee for increasing the per-hectare yields while saving manpower and farming materials to the maximum.

The international community steps up efforts to increase agricultural production and solve the acute food shortage by actively employing innovative scientific and technological achievements.