Rome to host new Run-for-Food event on World Food Day on Oct 16

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) A five kilometre Run-for-Food race will take place through Rome's historical centre on World Food Day on October 16, 2006.

Heading off from the stadium next to FAO headquarters, the event will take place on October 15, and cover the area around the Circus Maximus, Piazza Venezia and the Roman Colosseum, with around 2000 to 5000 participants expected to join the race.

Every year, World Food Day is celebrated on October 16 to mark the anniversary of the founding of Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in 1945, an FAO release here said.

The theme of World Food Day this year is ''Investing in agriculture for food security'', recalling that in spite of the importance of agriculture as the driving force in the economies of many developing countries, this vital sector is frequently starved of investment.

In particular, foreign aid to agriculture has shown a remarkable decline over the past 20 years.

Foreign aid to the sector has fallen dramatically, from a total of over nine billion US dollars per year in the early 1980s, to less than five billion dollars in the late 1990s.

Meanwhile, an estimated 854 million people around the world remain undernourished. Only investment in agriculture - together with support for education and health - is likely to be able to turn this situation around.

In 1996, Heads of State and Government from 176 countries attending the World Food Summit in Rome, committed themselves to reduce by half the number of hungry people in the world by 2015.

World leaders also recognised the need for investment in agriculture as fundamental to reducing hunger everywhere.

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