"Agriculture and intercultural dialogue" is the theme of this year's World Food Day, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said in Rome Tuesday.

World Food Day is celebrated every year to mark the day on which FAO was founded in 1945. This year's observance will be held on Oct. 16 at FAO Headquarters in Rome, and also be observed in more than 150 countries.

The theme recalls the contribution of different cultures to world agriculture and argues that sincere intercultural dialogue is a precondition for progress against hunger and environmental degradation.

"Intercultural dialogue between developing countries facing similar food and agriculture problems is an important way of sharing expertise and technologies," FAO said in the latest report.

South-south cooperation in the form of sharing expertise and technologies has resulted in the transfer of many solutions suited to local conditions.

"Poor farmers cannot compete in an international marketplace if their goods are shut out of richer countries, while subsidized farm products from industrialized countries are sold at or even below production cost in poor countries," the UN agency said.

Many developing countries want to produce for export purposes, but will not reach their full potential until further dialogue among nations leads to a fairer trading system, it added.

FAO estimates that 852 million people around the world remain hungry.

At the World Food Summit held in Rome in 1996 and again at the summit five years later, world leaders vowed to reduce the number of hungry people by half by 2015. The UN Millennium Development Goals has also set the same goal, it said.

World Food Day provides an opportunity at local, national and international levels to further dialogue and enhance solidarity on these issues, FAO said.

Source: Xinhua