Pope Francis has said governments must involve and listen to small farms and farming families to restart local economies and feed all the people of the world.
“Closed and conflicting — but powerful — economic interests have prevented us from designing a food system that responds to the values of the common good, solidarity and the ‘culture of encounter,’” the pope said.
The message was read on July 26 at a preparatory meeting in Rome for the UN Food Systems Summit to be held in September.
“Our poorest brothers and sisters, and the earth, our common home that ‘cries out for the damage we inflict on it through irresponsible use and abuse of the goods God has placed in it,’ demand radical change,” the pope said.
Family farms and other small farming operations are a place to start.
The rural sector of the local and global economy provides so much of the food people consume.
Still, people living in rural areas and working the land are rarely a priority in political and economic decision making, he said in the message read by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister.
Francis decried as criminal the existence of hunger in a world that can produce enough food for all.
This built on a warning from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that climate change and conflict are a consequence and driver of poverty and income inequality.
“Poverty, income inequality and the high cost of food continue to keep healthy diets out of the reach of some 3 billion people,” Guterres said. “Climate change and conflict are both consequences and drivers of this catastrophe.”
“We have a responsibility to realize the dream of a world where bread, water, medicine and work flow in abundance and reach the most needy first,” Pope Francis wrote.
“The Holy See and the Catholic Church will place themselves at the service of this noble goal, offering their contribution, joining forces and wills, actions and wise decisions.”
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