ArmInfo. Despite the availability of food, 9.6% of children under five are undernourished in Armenia. On this October 19 at a press conference in Yerevan, timed to coincide with World Food Day, celebrated in the world on October 16, said the Armenian representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN Raymond Yale.
According to him, it is necessary to develop a state policy in this direction. He acknowledged that the number of undernourished children in Armenia is decreasing from year to year, but, nevertheless, the problem must be solved. He pointed out the importance of continuing and expanding the school feeding program, which is being financed by the Russian Federation and with the assistance of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. An important component of the state policy should be to reduce losses in the field of agriculture, as well as providing assistance to small farms, which will lead to a fivefold reduction of poverty in rural areas and twice increase agricultural production. A special place should be given to the involvement in agriculture of women, who constitute 43% of the total rural population. In this case, the representative of FAO continued, the number of poor people in rural areas in Armenia will decrease by 22% -30%. To note, every year on October 16, the world celebrates World Food Day, established by the United Nations in 1945. According to the goals of the UN, it is planned to reach zero hunger by 2030. However, since 2015, there has been a trend of growing hunger, which affects every ninth inhabitant of the planet, or 821 million people.