Newswise — The World Food Day 2014 theme - Family Farming: “Feeding the world, caring for the earth” has been chosen by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers. It focuses world attention on the significance of family farming in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.
With a vision of “healthy communities, food systems and behaviors,” the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) has a long history of supporting local farmers. Actions include passing a resolution in 1981 encouraging the development of federal land-use policy guidelines to stem the of loss prime farmland and speaking out in support of Farmers Market Nutrition Enhancement Act of 1989, a pilot of the Farmers Market Coupon Programs which now benefits low-income families nationwide.
“A strong farm sector supports the social, environmental, health, and economic structure of all countries,” states Kendra Kattelmann, PhD, RDN, LN, SNEB President. “Successful family farms will foster the next generation of farmers and assure the transfer of this valuable knowledge.”
The SNEB Sustainable Food Systems Division is supporting family farming by publishing guidelines for increasing the use of local foods at meetings. The brochure is available at http://www.sneb.org/documents/locfoods_n.pdf. The mission of this division is to promote food systems that are environmentally sound, socially just, economically viable and that produce quality food.
With a theme of Nutrition Education: Local to Global, the 2014 SNEB Annual Conference also educated members on the global issues impacting food security and health. Material from those sessions is online at http://2014.sneb.org/.
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