Today is World Food Day - a day to stop and recognize the problem of hunger and consider how you can be a part of the solution.

"It's not inevitable," says Jim Cornelius, executive director of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. "We see many communities where there used to be high levels of hunger, today there is very little hunger. It's something we can do something about."

He notes forty years ago, 33 percent of the world population was hungry. That number has now dropped to 16 percent. "In the scheme of world history, that's a pretty short period of time so we are seeing progress on the hunger front," says Cornelius.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October

According to the FAO website, the objectives of World Food Day are to:

    * encourage attention to agricultural food production and to stimulate national, bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental efforts to this end;
    * encourage economic and technical cooperation among developing countries;
    * encourage the participation of rural people, particularly women and the least privileged categories, in decisions and activities influencing their living conditions;
    * heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in the world;
    * promote the transfer of technologies to the developing world; and
    * strengthen international and national solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty and draw attention to achievements in food and agricultural development.