Spain’s Queen Sofia is awarded the Ceres Medal

In a ceremony held in Madrid, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Director-General, Jacques Diouf said that Queen Sofia demonstrated “commitment to the most exploited people on the planet” and awarded her the Ceres Medal. This award is named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and is awarded to distinguished women who have contributed to the fight against hunger.

Queen Sofia has spent countless years working to help stamp out hunger, not only in Spain, but around the world. She supports a special FAO food security program in Central America called the FAO Special Program for Food Security (SPSF). The main goal of the SPSF is to cut the number of hungry people in the world in half, by 2015.

Former medals have gone to:

2004: President Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka
2003: Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark
2001: Belgium's Queen Fabiola

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