WORLD FOOD DAY INTERNATIONAL TELECONFERENCE TO BE BROADCAST FROM A&M-KINGSVILLE

(KINGSVILLE, October 3, 1996) - Texas A&M University-Kingsville will join more than 1,000 sites world-wide Wednesday, Oct. 16, in offering the 13th Annual World Food Day internationally televised conference to focus attention on the problem of world hunger.

The teleconference, titled "People Power: Harvest of Hope," was created to offer a look at the role grassroots organizations can play to ensure food security for all. "People Power: Harvest of Hope" also ties in to the World Food Day theme, "Fighting Hunger and Malnutrition," chosen by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

The teleconference will be broadcast from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Room 302 of Jernigan Library. The three-hour program will be aired live from George Washington University studios in Washington D.C. and will be broadcast in English, French and Spanish to a worldwide audience as part of a wide variety of activities organized by local groups to focus attention on the problem of world hunger.

Roughly 800 million people world-wide remain chronically undernourished, according to Patricia Young, coordinator of the U.S. National Committee for World Food Day. "I think that we are fast learning that it will take the full participation of all the people to eradicate worldwide hunger. Topdown solutions only give us partial answers at best. We must turn to the skills and knowledge of the people who fight hunger on a daily basis," she said. "We must not forget that people at the grassroots are fighting every day to stay alive. They deserve our support."

A&M-Kingsville Professor Dr. Doreen Swakon is the local director of the Texas 2020 Vision-Food Systems Professions Education project of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a program that educates students enrolled in Texas college and university agriculture programs about not only aspects of food production and processing, but also about where the food really goes after processing -- how that really translates into a child going to school in the morning, happy and able to learn. Swakon, who helped arrange for the teleconference to be broadcast from A&M-Kingsville, agrees with Young that addressing the problem of world hunger requires a united effort.

"The importance of people helping people is especially critical in light of the recent welfare reform act because you can't build human capacity when people are hungry," Swakon said.

Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are available for participation in the conference through the Catholic University of America for interested clergy and other professionals in social services while the American Dietetic Association will offer CEUs for registered dietitians and dietetic technicians. The American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences has also approved teleconference participation towards Professional Development Units (PDUs).

World Food Day, began in 1981, is observed in more than 150 countries. The day marks the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945.

More information can be obtained about the World Food Day teleconference by contacting the office of the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences at (512) 593-3712.

-TAMUK-
-Mary McAdam