ROME (AP) — Calling food the “pathway to peace,” the head of the U.N. World Food Program on Thursday accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at the agency's headquarters in Rome, instead of in Oslo, Norway, in a break with pomp-filled tradition amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

WFP Executive Director David Beasley received the medal, which had been sent in a diplomatic pouch to Rome. He said the prize acknowledges "our work of using food to combat hunger, to mitigate against destabilization of nations” and create stability and peace.

Before Beasley received the medal and diploma from a gloved presenter, there were brief words from the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee: "We are together, despite the distance forced upon us by the pandemic,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, said from Oslo.

Beasley said the prize is “more than a thank you. It is a call to action.”

“Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse — 270 million people are marching toward starvation,” the WFP chief said.

Of those people, he said, “30 million depend on us 100% for survival.”

Beasley noted the irony that after a century of “massive strides in eliminating extreme poverty” so many are on the brink of starvation.

“I don't go to bed at night thinking about the children we saved. I go to bed weeping over the children we could not save,'' he said. ”And when we don't have enough money, nor the access we need, we have to decide which children eat and which children do not eat, which children live, which children die."

Beasley added a plea: “Please don't ask us to choose who lives and who dies,” but, rather, “let's feed them all.”

This year, 12 Nobel laureates were named across the six categories. All but the Peace Prize had been awarded over the past days at low-key ceremonies across Europe and the United States where the winners live.

A Nobel prize comes with a 10-milion krona ($1.1 million) cash award — to be shared in some cases — diplomas and gold medals.

Traditionally, the Nobel ceremonies are all held Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Albert Nobel in Stockholm, except for the Peace Prize that is held in Oslo, in neighboring Norway. Nobel wanted it that way, for reasons that he kept to himself.

“The pandemic has subjected us all to difficult obstacles. We have been reminded of the importance of cross-border cooperation in resolving humanitarian crises and that, with the help of science, we can find solutions to the challenges we face," said Lars Heikensten, executive director of the Nobel Foundation.

The Norwegians at first had planned a scaled-down event with 100 guests instead of the traditional ceremony with roughly 1,000 guests. But in November the WFP and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said that an in-person award ceremony would not be held.

The Oslo-based committee added that depending on how the pandemic develops, Beasley could maybe give his Nobel lecture at the Oslo City Hall in 2021.

Later Thursday, in place of the traditional glitzy ceremony in Stockholm, a webcast event with members of the prize-awarding institutions will present the discoveries and achievements being awarded. Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf will take part.

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Olsen reported from Copenhagen, Denmark.