More than 150 countries around the world will observe World Food Day this year, organizing special events, conferences, contests, sports activities and a global candlelight vigil on “The Right to Food”.

FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, the day the Organization was founded in 1945 in Quebec City, Canada. This year’s World Food Day theme is “The Right to Food.”

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This year’s World Food Day theme, “The Right to Food,” highlights a basic human right that is often ignored as severe food insecurity continues to afflict more than 850 million people.

The right to food, according to international law, is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. It is the right to feed oneself in dignity, rather than the right to be fed.

Since the 1996 World Food Summit, FAO has worked with governments and communities worldwide to gain recognition for this basic human right.