Premal Kumar Khanal
World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16, an initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The day serves as a global call to action to raise awareness and mobilize efforts to fight hunger and promote access to healthy diets for all.
Still, nearly 1 in 10 people worldwide are malnourished, and more than 3 billion cannot afford nutritious food, highlighting the urgent need for collective action. Even more worryingly, more than 200 million children under the age of five are affected by malnutrition, either underweight or overweight. Yet, in stark contrast, one-third of all food produced globally is wasted, enough to feed 2 billion people. This serious imbalance underscores the urgent need for systemic change.
The theme of World Food Day 2025 is “Hand in hand for good food and a better future”, which highlights the critical importance of global collaboration and collective action between governments, organizations, communities and individuals. This year’s theme calls for concerted efforts to transform food systems, promote peace and sustainability, and build a food-secure future for all. With its main purpose, World Food Day 2025 is a call to advocate for universal access to healthy, nutritious food, leaving no one behind.
The United Nations has set the goal of ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition through promoting sustainable agriculture as the second of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. With just a few years to go before the deadline, the world is currently off track to meet the hunger and malnutrition targets.
Food is not just a means of livelihood; it is a powerful thread that connects us to our identity, our communities, and the planet we share. In the world, culture and food have a profound significance, representing much more than basic human needs.
In addition to the lack of access to safe, healthy and nutritious food, the ongoing impact of the “3 Cs” – climate change, COVID-19, and conflict – has severely weakened both national and local food systems. Rising temperatures, rising prices, and international tensions have contributed to a situation of global food insecurity. This crisis affects people worldwide. They represent the largest portion of the world’s population and are at high risk of acute hunger.
The Marxist perspective sees food production as an expression of class struggle, where capitalism transforms agriculture into an industrial process that prioritizes profit over human and environmental well-being. This system exploits agricultural labor, separates workers from the fruits of their labor, and disrupts the natural balance through practices such as soil degradation and environmental pollution. From this perspective, the solution would involve a revolution that establishes a food system based on communal ownership and equitable distribution, restoring a relationship with nature that is “suitable for the full development of the human race.”
Neoliberalism has affected agriculture by promoting market liberalization. This has led to a reduction in state support. The vulnerability of small farmers to global competition and the financialization of agriculture have increased. These policies have often led to agricultural restructuring, a shift towards large-scale commercial agriculture, and the erosion of traditional safety nets. Although Neoliberal reforms aim to achieve efficiency, they have been linked to negative consequences, such as reduced food production in some regions, increased unemployment, and growing inequality.
Neoliberalism has had a negative impact on the labor sector. Neoliberal policies have negatively affected agricultural workers by eliminating state support, reducing rural employment opportunities. This has increased rural debt, reduced the viability of small-scale farming, and increased the shift to precarious, low-wage, informal labor, contributing to widespread agrarian distress and inequality.
Nepalese Context:
The Constitution of Nepal has guaranteed food as a fundamental right. Article 36 of the Constitution states that every citizen shall have the right to food. Similarly, every citizen shall have the right to be protected from situations where his life is at risk due to lack of food. It is mentioned that every citizen shall have the right to food sovereignty in accordance with the law.
Similarly, the constitution mentions that under the state policy related to the basic needs of citizens, investment in the agricultural sector will be increased and food production that is climate and soil-friendly will be encouraged in line with the concept of food sovereignty, thereby ensuring sustainable production, supply, storage, security, and easy and effective distribution of food.
Similarly, in the Food Sovereignty Act, food sovereignty means the rights of farmers to exercise or enjoy in the food production and distribution system: (1) To participate in the food policy-making process; (2) To choose any business related to food production or distribution system; (3) To have access Selection of arable land, labor, seeds, technology, and tools, (4) It is mentioned that agricultural business will remain free from the adverse effects of globalization or commercialization.
According to the National Census-2078 report, 57.3 percent of the population is dependent on the agriculture sector. Although it has decreased by 8.3 percent compared to the last census, agriculture is gradually becoming dependent. In particular, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, two major countries in Eastern Europe, is expected to lead to a food crisis in Nepal as the global food supply chain is shrinking. Since these countries are major exporters of food, petroleum products, and chemical fertilizers, this war has also exacerbated the food crisis and price increases.
The Neoliberal policies adopted in Nepal have adversely affected the agricultural sector. There is a policy of not increasing production and employment, supporting imports, and mobilizing import-based revenue. The government has cut subsidies to farmers. The development of the agricultural sector has not been given importance in the national budget. As a result, Nepal, although called an agricultural country, has been recorded as a country that imports agricultural and food products.
Although food production and storage are important issues for food security, the government has not given importance to this issue. The government has allocated only around 55 billion in the total budget. Of the budget allocated for the agriculture sector, about 30 billion has to be spent on importing chemical fertilizers.
Nepal is said to have a food shortage of about 7 million metric tons. At the household level, about 21 percent of Nepalis still have to consume less than the daily calorie requirement. About 20 districts are in a state of food insecurity due to unbalanced production and distribution within the country.
In Nepal, about 1.5 million hectares of cultivable land is barren, revolutionary land reform has not been implemented, there is a large number of landless farmers, lack of irrigation and fertilizers, lack of modernization and commercialization of agriculture, which has led to problems in production and distribution. There is a shortage of manpower in agriculture because the government has not given priority to the development of agriculture. Lack of labor force, lack of market and price have also led to a decline in agricultural production.
Capitalism can increase production through industrialization and technological innovation, but it creates social conflict, alienates workers, and often leads to “crisis” where production outstrips consumption or is environmentally unsustainable. Ultimately, Marxists argue that these increased production capacities are necessary to develop productive forces.
To develop the agricultural sector and increase food production, we must move forward with immediate, medium-term, and long-term strategies.
In this context, an integrated strategy to reduce the high youth unemployment in Nepal and to increase agricultural production should be implemented simultaneously.
In this context, an integrated strategy for reducing youth unemployment, which is an urgent problem in Nepal, and for increasing agricultural production should be implemented simultaneously. For this, first of all, the government should set up a production and employment growth fund from the amount accumulated in the banking sector in a liquid state. The young unemployed labor force should be provided with skill training and seed capital at an affordable rate from such a fund. In addition, to ensure the market and price of the produced goods, a cooperative-based agricultural produce purchase and sale center should be established in every municipality. Agricultural technical manpower should be arranged in every ward to provide technical services to agricultural entrepreneurs.
Similarly, to develop the entire agricultural sector, it is necessary to end dual ownership in agriculture, provide land to landless farmers, and modernize and commercialize agriculture to increase production on cultivable land, and to become self-reliant in food commodities along with the development of the agricultural sector. In order to improve agricultural production during the socialist revolution, a state plan should be implemented to introduce mechanization, large-scale collective farms, and new technologies and to increase efficiency. Other major strategies include providing government support through grants and loans, investing in education and training for farmers, and implementing strategies and programs to develop infrastructure such as irrigation.
The writer is the Politburo Member of Communist Party of Nepal ( Unified Socialist)
