Chinese grain officials on Tuesday joined a "24-hour hunger" campaign to promote public awareness of food shortages.

The campaign was organized by the State Administration of Grain, which asked its staff members across China to voluntarily fast on Tuesday, the 32nd World Food Day.

To promote the campaign, the SAG closed its staff canteen for the day, reported the Mirror, a Beijing-based evening newspaper.

"We hope that through the campaign our staff will understand hunger and cherish food, and we also wish to arouse public awareness," said an official from the administration.

Xia Wenxing, chief of the Administration of Grain in Hunan province, participated in the campaign, the Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported.

From 7 am to 21 pm on Tuesday, a reporter from the newspaper followed Xia and recorded his daily activities attending the National Agriculture Exhibition in Jinan, Shandong province.

For the whole day, Xia, 58, only drank water, and at the end of the day he barely had the strength to speak, the paper said.

"I did this in order to warn people not to waste food," Xia said.

He said that he experienced extreme hunger when he was a teenager.

"At that time, we only had 1-1.5 kilogram of rice per week," Xia said.

"Now our lives are better off, but we still should not forget the past," he said.

Huang Peigen from the Administration of Grain in Hunan province said that 40 to 50 percent of the administration's staff participated in the campaign.