World Food Day Focus on Agricultural Cooperatives

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) highlights farm cooperatives in feeding an
expanding global population. This year’s World Food Day theme, “Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world,” highlights the role of cooperatives in improving food security and reducing hunger. Small-scale farmers are expected to provide much of the extra food needed to feed a global population of more than nine billion by 2050. Supporting and investing in cooperatives, producer organizations and other rural institutions is viewed as critical to supporting those farmers. Cooperatives are a special type of enterprise that balance two main goals: satisfying members’ needs, and pursuing profit and sustainability. They may be registered cooperatives, producer organizations, self-help groups, unions and federations of producers, or Chambers of agriculture, to name a few. Here cooperative means any member-owned enterprise run on democratic principles.

- from World Food Day / FAO