The journey of food – Young Macedonian artist wins FAO’s World Food Day poster contest 2022

North Macedonia is largely an agriculture country, with smallholders and family farms cultivating two-thirds of the country’s arable land. World Food Day inspired Mihaela Stojmenovikj, a 17-year-old student from Skopje to portray the important work of family farmers, who are ensuring that our agrifood systems provide us with a variety of nutritious foods.

With her poster, Mihaela won the first prize in FAO’s 2022 global World Food Day poster contest in the 16 – 19 years age category.

Michaela’s poster is a combination of twelve scenes, each detailing a different food story. These stories form the cells of a honeycomb that symbolizes the food system, in which bees play a fundamental role in propagating the plants that underpin our food security, nutrition, and the environment. The vignettes tell the journey of food from farm – farmer plow land, raise livestock, milk a cow, and harvest grapes, there are vineyards, a maize field and apple orchards in bloom and production, while bees buzz at the apiary – to the green markets and ultimately, to our tables.

Michaela has previously won several artistic contests and she was very excited to use her creativity to participate in the global call to action for the 2022 World Food Day. She hopes that, together with her fellow contestants around the world she is helping to spread the word that by aiming for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, we can achieve a Zero Hunger world where no one is left behind.