The first World Food Conference was held in Rome in 1974 by the United Nations under the auspices of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in the wake of the devastating famine in Bangladesh in the preceding two years.
Perhaps the most famous statement made at the conference was by then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who made the declaration that within 10 years no child would go to bed hungry. While this bold declaration was in no way fulfilled, it did galvanize public attention, stimulate debate and studies on the feasibility of such a goal.
In the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition, governments attending the World Food Conference proclaimed that "every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties."
Among other outcomes, the conference put in place a World Food Council (subsequently disbanded) and led to follow-up World Food Conferences.
Famous quotes containing the words world, food and/or conference:
“At most, the greatest persons are but great wens, and excrescences; men of wit and delightfull conversation, but as moales for ornament, except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“Would mankind be but contented without the continual use of that little but significant pronoun “mine” or “my own,” with what luxurious delight might they revel in the property of others!... But if envy makes me sicken at the sight of everything that is excellent out of my own possession, then will the sweetest food be sharp as vinegar, and every beauty will in my depraved eyes appear as deformity.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)