VATICAN CITY, 16 OCT 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father has sent a Message to Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nation's Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) for the occasion of World Food Day. The Day falls annually on 16 October and commemorates the anniversary of the foundation of the FAO in 1945. The theme of this year's Day is: "Achieving food security in times of crisis".
"The current crisis, which affects all sectors of the economy without distinction, strikes particularly seriously at the agricultural world where the situation has become dramatic", writes Benedict XVI. "The crisis calls on governments and on the various components of the international community to make decisive and effective choices.
"Guaranteeing individuals and peoples the chance to defeat the scourge of hunger means ensuring they have real access to adequate and healthy nourishment", he adds. "This is, in fact, a concrete expression of the right to life which, though solemnly proclaimed, all too often fails to be fully implemented".
The Holy Father further observes that the theme of the Day makes it clear that "agriculture must be able to command a sufficient level of investment and resources". The theme also "helps us to understand that the goods of creation are by their nature limited, and hence they require responsible management capable of favouring food security, also with a view to that of future generations".
"Achieving this objective", Benedict XVI continues, "calls for a modification in lifestyles and ways of thinking". What is needed is "a form of co-operation that protects the cultivation methods of each area and avoids the thoughtless exploitation of natural resources. Furthermore, I hope that such co-operation may safeguard the values specific to the rural world and the fundamental rights of people who work the land. ... Experience shows that technical solutions, advanced though they may be, are ineffective if they do not focus on the person, who remains the principle protagonist and who, in his spiritual and material dimension, is the origin and aim of all activity".
Finally the Pope recalls that access to food "is a fundamental right of individuals and peoples, and will become a reality, and hence a form of security, if adequate development is guaranteed in all the various regions. In particular, the drama of hunger will only be overcome by 'eliminating the structural causes that give rise to it and promoting the agricultural development of poorer countries. This can be done by investing in rural infrastructures, irrigation systems, transport, organisation of markets, and in the development and dissemination of agricultural technology that can make the best use of the human, natural and socio-economic resources that are more readily available at the local level'".
MESS/WORLD FOOD DAY/DIOUF VIS 20091016 (460)
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