October 16: World Food Day

Every October 16, more than 150 countries celebrate World Food Day. The date recalls an agreement signed at the end of the Second World War.

What happened

On October 16, 1945, in Quebec, Canada, the constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, was signed. The world was coming out of the war hungry, and the new organization was born with the mission of fighting hunger and improving the production and distribution of food.

In 1979, at its 20th Conference, FAO's member countries created World Food Day, to be celebrated every year on the date of its founding. Since 1981, each edition has had a theme, chosen to draw attention to one part of the problem: water, climate, family farming, waste.

Why it matters

Hunger isn't just a lack of food in the world. Often, it's food that exists and doesn't reach those who need it. A significant part of the food produced is lost on the way between field and table, in harvest, transport, storage and sale.

In Brazil, much of the fresh food passes through the wholesale supply centers, the CEASAs, where food changes hands every day and where produce not sold in time is left over. It's there that many people still work outside the financial system, and it's there that surplus can become loss or become a meal.

There's also a Brazilian voice that helps understand the day. In Quarto de Despejo (1960), the writer Carolina Maria de Jesus, a paper picker in the Canindé favela, wrote: "Hunger is also a teacher."

The bridge to Bairo's vision

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez founded Instituto CEASA, the humanitarian venture of the ecosystem. The proposal is to broaden access to food using the surplus from the wholesale supply centers, with a project for a factory of long-shelf-life food that keeps outside the refrigerator. It's a proposal, at a development stage, not a result.

The link with agribusiness isn't accidental. The platform Bairo built, CEASA Bank, is a financial platform for agribusiness that runs on the infrastructure of an authorized institution, designed for those who produce, trade and buy at the centers. It's described in The frequency of silence and in A whole body.

For Bairo, hunger is one of the oldest pains, and October 16 is a reminder that technology and finance only make sense if they reach someone's table.

Read also: Carolina Maria de Jesus and Quarto de Despejo · Ecosystem

Sources

• FAO, World Food Day: https://www.fao.org/world-food-day/en
• UN Geneva, "World Food Day: the task of feeding the world": https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/news/2025/10/111832/world-food-day-live-task-feeding-world
• FAO, food loss and waste: https://www.fao.org/platform-food-loss-waste/en
• Wikipedia (Portuguese), Quarto de Despejo: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto_de_Despejo