UN upholds food rights on World Food Day

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The United Nations on Tuesday called for respect of the right to food for the poor, particularly the estimated 854 million people suffering from chronic hunger.

World Food Day was celebrated by scores of countries Tuesday, timed to coincide with events on Wednesday to mark the Global Call for Action Against Poverty and the UN campaign to implement the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to halve poverty by 2015.

At UN headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a message on World Food Day that access to food is a human right.

"In a world of plenty, this situation is unacceptable," he said. "We must make the voice of these 854 million people heard. We must work to uphold their fundamental human right."

Despite efforts to reduce poverty and feed people around the world, the UN said the number of people suffering from chronic hunger has increased and progress in eradicating poverty is slow.

"The world has the resources, the knowledge and the tools to make the right to food a reality for all," Ban said. "On World Food Day, let us join forces to make it happen."

To mark the event at UN headquarters, some 200 students from the Lehigh Valley Charter High School in Pennsylvania performed The Poverty Requiem. The requiem was written by Dutch composers Peter Maissan and Sylvia Borren, and hauntingly depicts poverty's impact on people. dpa tn aw