West Virginia University will participate in an international teleconference observing World Food Day from noon to 3 p.m. Monday, Oct. 16, in the main conference room of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy.

Live from ReutersWashington studios, the satellite program, entitledPower of the People: Bottom-up Solutions to Hunger,will present a panel discussion on ways grassroots activism seeks to address the hunger crisis.

Hosted by Ray Suarez, a senior correspondent with the PBS Jim Lehrer News Hour, the discussion will feature three notable proponents of grassroots development: Dr. Makanjuola Alaseinde Arigbede, a Nigerian medical doctor with 25 years of experience as a development activist; Eva Clayton, a former U.S. congresswoman who served as assistant director general of the U.N. World Food and Agriculture Organization; and Dr. Deepa Narayan, a World Bank senior advisor for poverty reeducation and economic management.

** This years teleconference will provide a survey of civil society’s increasingly effective actions and networks to combat the scourge of world hunger and poverty,said Bill Bryan, professor of agronomy in WVU s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences and local coordinator of the teleconferences.The program will examine the role of ordinary people, citizen networks, nongovernmental organizations, international conferences and protest movements in the search for a more equitable world society.

World Food Day is observed in more than 15 countries and marks the founding day of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, which is headquartered in Rome.