» 07/01/2011 14:30 VATICAN-FAO Pope calls for an end to speculation on the hungry Speaking to participants at the 37th FAO Conference, Benedict XVI emphasizes the urgency for a model of development which alongside economic problems and technical solutions puts the human dimension and therefore the principle of solidarity. Due attention to young people and the protection of rural families.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Having to food eat is part of the fundamental right to life of every person, but while the world production is capable of feeding the entire global population, there are many, and too many children among them, who do not to have access to food, because "even food has become the subject of speculation or is linked to trends of an unregulated and financial market that is lacking in certain moral principles and is based on the single objective of profit." This was revealed by Benedict XVI, who returns to reaffirm the principle of solidarity as "an essential criterion for all policies and strategies, so as to render international activity and its rules instruments of effective service to the entire human family and in particular to least”.
Listening to the Pope this morning, were the participants in the thirty-seventh Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), to whom Benedict XVI illustrated the urgency for "a development model that considers not only the economic scale of needs or the reliability of the technical strategies to be pursued, but also the human dimension of each initiative and capable of achieving true brotherhood, relying on the ethical appeal to 'feed the hungry', which belongs to the feeling of compassion written in the heart and humanity of every person and which the Church has included among its works of mercy. In this perspective, the institutions of the international community are called upon to operate in line with their mandate to uphold the values of human dignity by eliminating attitudes of closure and leaving no space to special requests often passed off as in the interest of the general public ".
"My thoughts at this time go to the plight of millions of children who are the first victims of this tragedy, doomed to an early death to a delay in their physical and psychological growth, forms of exploitation in order to receive a minimum of nourishment. The attention to the younger generations may be a way to combat the abandonment of rural and agricultural work, so as to enable entire communities, whose survival is threatened by hunger, to look with greater confidence to their future. It must, in fact, be noted that despite the commitments and consequent obligations, assistance and practical help are often limited to emergencies, forgetting that a coherent conception of development must be able to design a future for every person, family and community by promoting long-term goals.
"Therefore initiatives that would also take in the entire international community to rediscover the value of the rural family must be supported, as must the central role to reach a stable food security. In fact, in rural areas, the traditional family is committed to fostering agricultural production by the wise transmission from parents to children not only of the cultivation or the preservation and distribution of food, but also ways of life, educational principles, culture, religion, the concept of the sacredness of the person at all stages of its existence. The rural family is a model not only of work, but of living and is concrete expression of solidarity, which confirms the essential role of women. "
"We are aware that the objective of food security is a authentically human requirement. Guaranteeing it for present generations and those to come also means protecting it from a frenetic exploitation of natural resources, because the race to consume and waste seems to ignore any attention to genetic and biological diversity, which is of great importance for agricultural activities. But the idea of exclusive ownership of these resources is opposed to God's call to men and women who in "cultivating and safeguarding" the earth (cf. Gen 2.8 to 17) participate in promoting the use of the goods of creation, a goal that multilateral rules and international activity can certainly help to achieve ".
