A suitcase full of hopes, but also of fears and loneliness. That is what anyone forced to migrate carries with them, and it is the image the Fao has chosen to illustrate — through a number of personal stories — the theme of World Food Day 2017.
World Food Day marks the anniversary of the founding of FAO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, whose objective is to eradicate hunger in the world. This year's slogan is: Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development.
Food scarcity is one of the main causes that force people to migrate: to poverty and wars have been added climate change, which threatens agricultural production. By helping the populations of the countries most affected to tackle these problems, it is possible to offer them a choice — that of remaining in their land of origin.
In 2015, one in seven people was a migrant. Migrating is not a pleasure, it is not a choice: it is a necessity. "You feel sad when you are away from home. You feel far from your family," confides Paseano Gómez López, who was forced to leave Mexico because the land is not very fertile and production is too costly. Drought, higher temperatures, flooding and natural disasters are putting crops at ever greater risk in a great many countries, causing problems not only for the economy but, first and foremost, for the food supply of inhabitants who find themselves with no choice but to move away: it is above all young people who leave, yet in doing so they deprive their home country of its workforce.
"Before this project, we had to buy vegetables at the market. Now we have started growing them in our own fields. We have learned many things from the project. If we learn more, it will not be necessary to go abroad. I have great hope that we will be able to work with our husbands in agriculture" — these are the words of Ashmita Tapa, who at just twenty-one took part in the FAO programme helping three thousand farmers in Nepal to cope with the consequences of climate change. She is not the only one fighting hunger: every evening one in nine people goes to bed hungry, even though the food we produce every day is sufficient to feed the entire world population. Like Ashmita, Laxmi, Um and Byron have also shared their stories on the occasion of World Food Day, explaining the FAO projects under way in their countries.
The husbands of Ashmita and Laxmi, both Nepalese, were forced to move abroad to find work. The two women thus found themselves alone, having to survive day by day in a country that is among those most severely affected by climate change. FAO was their only source of hope: they learned sustainable and more effective farming and livestock-rearing techniques.
Before the war — which has now been going on for six years and has caused at least 321,000 deaths and 145,000 missing — animals were the main source of livelihood for the family of Um Yazan, a Syrian woman. And they still are today: "They don't give us much milk but we make do with what we have," says the woman, who now lives in a tent with no water or electricity. The survival of livestock is closely tied to that of rural communities: for this reason FAO is committed to safeguarding the health of cattle, sheep and goats.
Coffee is one of Guatemala's main resources, but in 2014 many plantations were struck by coffee rust, a disease that poses a serious threat to production. FAO helped growers such as Byron Jerónimo to face the threat. "The quality of life is better here," says Byron, who decided to focus entirely on organic production, "thanks to coffee and thanks to the optimism of the people in our community, we can develop here."
The United Nations organisation puts several strategies into practice. One of these is Climate-smart agriculture: the populations most severely affected by climate change learn to choose the crops best suited to their land, through a series of tests. In this way they can grow those that are most resistant to drought and disease, while at the same time not depleting the soil of nutrients. In addition, FAO promotes sustainable agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With regard to livestock, on one hand priority is given to species that are more adaptable, and on the other, programmes are implemented for the prevention and control of disease — especially in Syria, where FAO has saved more than one million sheep and goats and at least 65,000 cattle with the help of local vets. In the case of wars, assistance also takes place in the period following the conflict, since migrants returning to their own country have to start over from scratch.
When we pack our suitcase, we usually have something pleasant ahead of us: a bit of relaxation by the sea, a weekend with friends, a work opportunity. Sometimes we decide to board a plane and never come back, because we have found a place where we feel at home. There are those, however, who already have a home and would not leave it for anything in the world, yet despite this are forced to pack their bags and go in search of a place where food is not lacking. One of the sustainable development goals that the United Nations intends to achieve by 2030 is the end of hunger in the world: it may seem like a utopia, something everyone hopes for but no one truly believes in. And yet Ashmita, Laxmi, Um and Byron believed in it. And they were right to do so.
