Plant health key to safeguarding food by FAO published on 2020-11-11T04:13:50Z Did you know that plants make up 80 percent of the food we eat? Yet, each year we lose up to 40 percent of food crops because of pests and diseases. This leaves millions of people without enough food to eat and seriously damages agriculture - the primary source of income for poor rural communities. We don’t often think about the importance of keeping plants healthy. But it’s critical to our food security. Ralf Lopian is the chairperson of the International Steering Committee of the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH 2020). Producer: Charlotta Lomas, FAO. Photo: ©FAO/Florita Botts. Genre Learning