Heed small-scale farmers and families to defeat hunger, says pope
Pope Francis issued an appeal to FAO on World Food Day. And in his social network X profile: "Let us reject the line of reasoning that embraces weapons, and instead transform massive military expenditures into investments to combat hunger and the lack of healthcare and education"
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Francis issued a message to mark World Food Day, which falls today, addressed to Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
In it, the pontiff writes, “political and economic decision-makers at international level must listen to the demands of those at the bottom of the food chain, such as small-scale farmers, and of intermediate social formations, such as the family, who are directly involved in providing food for people to eat.”
The right to food is "a priority” since “it satisfies one of the basic needs of human beings,” notes Francis in his appeal, which Mgr Fernando Chica Arellano, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the FAO read at the World Food Forum currently underway in Rome. Yet, “we see this right frequently undermined and not fairly applied, with the harmful consequences that this entails.”
Indeed, “Vigorous solutions to address and solve the food problems of our time require that we consider the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity as the foundations of our development programmes and projects, so that we never delay truly listening to the needs that come from below, from the workers and farmers, from the poor and hungry, and from those who live in hardship in isolated rural areas.”
“Humanity, wounded by so many injustices,” must “consider the paradigm of integral ecology, so that the needs of each person and of the person as a whole are taken into account, so that their dignity is protected in their relationship with others and in close connection with the care of creation. Only if we take the ideal of justice as the guide for our action can people's needs be met.”
But “This also requires that we allow ourselves to be challenged and moved by the condition of others, and that solidarity becomes the main focus of our decisions.”
Ultimately, “the protection of future generations will go hand in hand with listening to and acting in favour of the demands of present generations, through an intra- and intergenerational alliance that calls us all to fraternity and gives a new, more authentic meaning to international cooperation, a cooperation that must animate this Organization and the entire multilateral system.”
In this journey, the FAO can count on the encouragement of the Holy See and the Catholic Church, “which never cease to make their tenacious contribution so that everyone may have food in adequate quantity and quality for themselves and their families, so that each person may lead a dignified life and so that the painful scourge of misery and hunger in the world may be definitively defeated.”
Pope Francis also referred to World Food Day today in a post on his social network X profile: "War brings out the worst in humanity: selfishness, violence and dishonesty. Let us reject the line of reasoning that embraces weapons, and instead transform massive military expenditures into investments to combat hunger and the lack of healthcare and education".
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