Focus on Youth on World Food Day
On this World Food Day, we highlight the importance of youth engagement to achieve sustainable food systems in Switzerland and around the world.
World Food Day commemorates the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945. As we now near 2030, we stand far from the pledged Sustainable Development Goals of Zero Hunger and Responsible consumption. The external page The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 states cascading and interlinked crises are putting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in grave danger.
The United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021 focused on global food systems transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. How to achieve meaningful transformation was also central to external page recent recommendations of Swiss FAO National Committee to the Swiss government.
The recommendations were grouped in four key areas- food system perspective for solutions, urbanization of the population, agroecology and youth engagement. Specifically, the recommendations mention that Switzerland has made major contributions to raising awareness of young people as important agents of change in the multilateral context. And in 2020, the committee produced a paper with the following key suggestions for increasing youth engagement:
- More funding is needed for innovative private sector investment initiatives in the agriculture and food sectors that focus on young farmers and entrepreneurs;
- The development of core service platforms is critical to ensure access by smallholder farmers to quality inputs, markets, finance,
data/knowledge and to promote fair prices for producers; and - In Switzerland, the position of young women farmers and entrepreneurs in the sector needs to be strengthened and their importance for the new agricultural and food system policy emphasized.
Educational institutions across Switzerland are critical conduits for young students to learn and collaborate on food and agriculture issues. Institutions like ETH Zurich, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and Strickhof Center for Agriculture, Food and Home Economics offer agricultural, food technology, and environmental studies. Collaborative platforms at ETH Zurich, such as the World Food System Center, ETH for Development and Nadel Center for Development and Cooperation support the creation of solutions working towards the Sustainable Development Goals, where students are also involved. Associations across Switzerland also offer young people a chance to raise their voice in food system issues, such as the Young Farmers' Commission (JULA).
All these avenues for youth engagement should be utilized and encouraged.
To get active this World Food Day, several events are taking place in Switzerland and online:
external page World Food Day Ceremony and Intergenerational Dialogue, 14 October, 10:00 CEST
external page Gare Cornavin World Food Day Exhibition in Geneva. The week-long events to mark World Food Day 2022 will be concluded with the illumination of the Jet d’eau, the symbol of Geneva, in blue, during the evening of 16 October from 18:30 until 22:30.
The Swiss FAO National Committee (CNS-FAO) is a consultative body of the Federal Council, which was established on 22 April 1947. The committee usually meets three or four times a year. The present chairman is Martijn Sonnevelt, Executive Director at ETH Zurich World Food System Center. The committee is made up of 12- 15 members from different organisations.