With World Food Day on 16 October 2014 focusing on family farming, an article in The Pioneer outlines how India needs to support family farming in urban centers.

Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth is the theme for World Food Day in 2014, drawing attention to the significant role family farming plays in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment and achieving sustainable development.

“Ensuring food security ought to be an issue of great importance for a country like India, where more than one-third of the population is absolutely poor,” says the article. India is experiencing a shift away from a rural and agrarian population to urban, non-agriculture centers.

“Urban agriculture is one of the solutions for food security in India,” says the article, calling for city planners to support, facilitate and lead food security initiatives at a local and community level through decisions about the use of land.

Land for urban development with agriculture needs to be identified and agricultural land within urban areas protected. New townships should incorporate family farming, such as on rooftops, in community gardens and wherever there is space, to support food security and urban resilience in a sustainable way.

Read the full story: Family farming needed to prevent hunger and poverty

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