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:
“Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We can come up with a working definition of life, which is what we did for the Viking mission to Mars. We said we could think in terms of a large molecule made up of carbon compounds that can replicate, or make copies of itself, and metabolize food and energy. So that’s the thought: macrocolecule, metabolism, replication.”
—Cyril Ponnamperuma (b. 1923)
“The peace conference must not adjourn without the establishment of some ordered system of international government, backed by power enough to give authority to its decrees. ... Unless a league something like this results at our peace conference, we shall merely drop back into armed hostility and international anarchy. The war will have been fought in vain ...”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)