MILAN, Italy, May 29 (Xinhua) -- FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva on Thursday called for effective action to ensure adequate food security and nutrition for all people around the planet.
"Hunger and malnutrition are two of the major preventable catastrophes affecting our world," da Silva said at a round-table discussion in the northern city of Milan dedicated to the upcoming Expo Milano 2015.
Next year's world exposition in Milan, with its food security-oriented theme, as well as an international nutrition conference coming up in Rome in November, will be "emblematic efforts that help shape the sustainable future we want," said the head of the UN agency on food security, nutrition and agriculture issues.
Da Silva stressed any form of malnutrition has a terrible and costly individual, social and economic impact.
"While hunger and malnutrition remain, we will continue to witness immense suffering," he said.
He pointed out that 840 million people in the world were chronically hungry, and more than 160 million children suffered from stunted growth, while some two billion people globally experienced various forms of malnutrition.
"Around 45 percent of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition. And even if the child survives, his or her future will most probably be compromised because of inadequate nutrition in its early days," da Silva added.
Yet, he highlighted, the cause was not a shortage of food globally, but obstacles faced by people around the world in gaining access to adequate, safe, nutritious food or the means to produce or buy it.
"We need to act now, forcefully, to reach a world in which there is no over- or under-nutrition," he said, calling on governments to support sustainable, inclusive, social and economic development.
Thursday's event featured Italian high-profile figures including Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin, Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina and Commissioner of Italian Government for the Expo Milano 2015 Giuseppe Sala.
The Expo Milano 2015 theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" is at the heart of the UN's founding principles to combat hunger and poverty. The world exposition will run in the Italian business capital for six months from May until the end of October next year.
On Nov. 19-21, FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) will host the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) at FAO's headquarters in Rome, which the UN agency has defined as "the most significant international event on the issue in more than 20 years."