SARGODHA: The Institute of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Sargodha (UoS), organised a seminar and an awareness walk on ‘Optimal Nutrition’ on Tuesday.

The seminar and the walk were held to raise awareness among the public about the approaches that could ensure the possibility of ‘Zero Hunger World by 2030’.

Amid several hunger emergencies – both natural and manmade – the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is marking the World Food Day on Oct 16 by highlighting both challenges around the world and the real progress being made towards ‘zero hunger’.

UoS Vice-Chancellor Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad urged teachers, research scholars and students to play their due part in raising awareness, producing and publishing quality research aimed at achieving maximum sustainable output from local food products so that coming generations would not face food shortage.

He called for widespread land and agriculture sector reforms to empower small farmers who could in return ensure food security in the country.

“The time is ripe to adopt modern techniques in crop cultivation and utilizing scientific measures to produce healthy crops to meet the food requirements of the growing population,” he maintained.

Food technologist Tariq Sarwar Awan said around 3.1 million children die every year of purely malnutrition as vitamin-A deficiency affects 140 million children while 20 million children are born mentally impaired because their mothers has an iodine deficiency during pregnancy.

“Up to 50% of the hungry people globally are from farming families; 2.4 billion people don’t have adequate sanitation while 663 million people lack access to clean water. The world has only 3% of drinking water”, he added.

Mr Awan said some 1.3 billion tonnes of food amounting to $1 trillion is wasted or lost every year, one quarter of which could feed 795 million undernourished and starved people around the world.

Former Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation director Iftikhar Ahmed Sindhu said: “Every year, we witness hunger’s devastating effects on families, communities and whole economies. We should have to ensure that

people have access to enough high-quality food to lead active and healthy lives.”

Institute of Food Science and Nutrition Chairperson Dr Anjum Murtaza spoke on the impacts of shortage of food on human life.

He said society could be saved from mental and physical disabilities by using food ingredients having vitamin D, calcium and others.

The World Food Day Programme activities featured skits under various themes, cultural presentations, commercial and agricultural displays and other activities promoting food and nutrition security.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2018