In honor of World Food Day on Sunday, a teleconference addressing why hunger still exists despite 60 years of United Nations' efforts to combat it will be broadcast on campus today.
The teleconference, which will be aired at noon in Room 303 of the International Center, will feature author Frances Moore Lappé as this year's keynote speaker, and her speech will be broadcast across the nation.
MSU's Center for Advanced Study of International Development works with World Food Day programs on campus every year, said Pamela Galbraith, acting outreach coordinator for the teleconference.
"We try to promote awareness of international issues, and this is certainly something that's worthwhile," Galbraith said.
This year's theme, "Roads not Taken; Goals not Met; the Journey Ahead," also addresses how UN efforts can improve, Galbraith said.
World Food Day signifies the founding of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization in 1945. It first began in 1981 as an annual day to address the problem of global hunger.
MSU horticulture Professor John Biernbaum and sociology Professor Lawrence Busch will speak at MSU's teleconference following the broadcast. Biernbaum also coordinates the MSU Student Organic Farm, and Busch directs MSU's Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards. Jeff Armstrong, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said MSU's acknowledgment of World Food Day connects with the aim of his college and fits with MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon's discussions about MSU as a global land-grant university.
"(World Food Day is) very important to us as citizens with plenty, (while) many others are really suffering from a lack of food," Armstrong said. "It's a very important part of (MSU's) culture to be an engaged university and engaged at a global level."
He said university faculty members have been in different parts of Africa for over two decades working in programs to ensure that people in that region have enough to eat.
For example, former MSU President M. Peter McPherson has been working with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa in Washington, since leaving his post at MSU in December.
"Food security is a very big issue," Armstrong said. Galbraith said she hopes the teleconference will raise students' awareness of worldwide poverty and hunger problems, and inform students of different actions they can take — such as further horticultural research or making better decisions about local food choices.
"It's one of the focuses of this year — how the local choices we make affect people in the developing world," Galbraith said.
