Monsignor Giampietro Dal Toso
Secretary,
Pontifical Council Cor Unum
Speech for the
2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security
and Climate Change: Hunger for Action
Hanoi, Vietnam - 7th September 2012
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Thank you for the invitation to participate in this second
global conference on agriculture, food security and climate change. The
Holy See, through the participation in this meeting, wants to express
its interest and active participation in addressing the major problem
that the international community must attend to: ensuring that this
generation and future ones have access to food in a balanced
environment. In fact, hunger and, more generally, food insecurity is
still a burden on too many people. Unfortunately, the global crisis is
likely to divert our attention from that very basic right to food and
instead still wants to ensure the well-being of only a few. Our
Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which follows the activities of many
Catholic organizations working in the humanitarian field, continues to
monitor these critical situations, like in some countries of the Sahel,
where natural and human causes still provoke today hunger, insecurity
and suffering. In addition to economic reasons, there remain structural
issues which need to be resolved: fluctuation of prices, speculation and
the paradoxical reduction of income for small farmers in the
agribusiness sector; structural and market weakness of countries that
are already poor and the presence of lasting conflicts that aggravate
the situation of poverty and hunger.
There is no lack of effort to address these issues. The
conference in which we are gathered is a further sign that the
international community wants to bring together efforts to allow access
to those assets that ensure survival. Significantly, the theme for this
conference encompasses the relationship that exists between human labor
in farming, food production and environmental protection. The purpose of
achieving a climate-smart agriculture indicates the importance of
pursuing a broad approach aimed at integral human development, thus
finding ways to prevent situations of food emergencies, taking into
account both the human and the environmental factors. These two elements
affect each other and the humanitarian emergency is not infrequently the
result of environmental degradation, often due to disregard or the
uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources by man. On the positive
side, we have to say that the environment is entrusted to the custody of
man, who is responsible, both for the good of the present generation and
that of generations to come. Creation is offered to man by God as a
place to live and develop, in which to measure his ability to obtain
food and adjust it to his needs. But this relationship is modeled by
responsibility: man is not the master, but the steward of the
environment in which he lives.
These short remarks lead us into the central issue of any
development, which is the human factor. The principle of the centrality
of the human person is at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine (Caritas
in Veritate n. 47). The centrality of the human person entails
of course that all our efforts must have as their object the good of the
person. The action of the international community should aim to promote
every man, especially the weakest and most fragile. But the person
cannot only be the object of a development plan; rather he is the
subject of his own development. This applies also to the humanitarian
field and the study of issues related to hunger. Starting from the
centrality of the person, who is the subject of his own development, it
seems important to move towards the solutions of the problem involving
the direct responsibility of the person. These solutions should not aim
at the creation of structures, but rather at fostering conditions that
allow the person to develop himself and his environment. Obviously, this
approach should not hinder a political commitment to stem those
structural phenomena that cause hunger, allowing for example the poorest
countries to achieve a fair profit from their agricultural production
and promoting local entrepreneurship, since the poor is also a resource.
In fact, for a lasting solution, it is necessary to consider
the possibility for man to provide for his own needs with the work of
his hands. Even from a perspective of values, those plans that enable
the individual, family and small communities to take responsibility for
their nutrition should be fostered. In his
speech at the FAO on July 1, 2011, Benedict XVI asked to “rediscover
the value of the rural family business”. This is also expressed in a
document of our Pontifical Council of 1996:
“World Hunger. A Challenge For All: Development in Solidarity”.
This path calls into question an accurate view of human work
and the family. In the first place concerning work. The Judeo-Christian
heritage has redeemed work from a vision that considered it as an
unworthy activity and has made work an important pillar enabling man to
express himself and live in dignity. Stating the value of human work
acquires today a distinctive significance faced with two different
temptations: one is to consider work as a constraint that prevents man
from living fully; the other is to consider work as a simple
merchandise, which reduces the same subject who works to an object.
Against these two cultural settings, born from hedonism and unbridled
capitalism, it is important to affirm the dignity of work, including
agricultural labor, as a means through which man, by working on the
environment and transforming it, provides for his own needs and develops
himself. Therefore, man must be given the opportunity to work the land,
and well beyond a simple dynamic of work-money exchange in order to be
able to fully give of himself.
A further aspect of this personalistic approach is the
promotion of the family, because everyone is born, grows and relates
with that fundamental community that is the family. This means that
family life cannot be seen as opposed to the economic needs and the
development of a society. This consideration also applies to food, where
some people tend to identify the increase of population with the rise in
hunger and poverty. However, it is necessary to reiterate that every
life, before being a problem, is a resource for the human community and
that family poverty is not resolved by eliminating family in itself, but
by allowing its members to contribute through their work with what is
necessary for the survival and welfare of the family itself. An approach
to the issue of farming that seeks to support the family and its
stability may allow the society itself to gain greater stability as a
result, thus stemming phenomena such as migration and urbanization (cfr.
Caritas in Veritate n. 44). Encouraging small producers with
agricultural policies consistent with an approach to aiming at integral
human development, and therefore fostering some basic services like
education and health, is a choice that not only promotes food
sovereignty, but also environmental protection and social stability.
Solidarity between generations and among nations, subsidiarity to build
from the base a healthy economic system are principles that can inspire
a renewed action to free humanity from hunger.
The Church does not limit herself to providing an ethical
perspective, because the problem man faces is not just an issue of his
behavior. She wants to convey a vision of the human person, encompassing
also his spiritual dimension. Therefore, it cannot fail to mention that
if it is true that every development starts from the person, it is also
true that from him arise also those forms of disparity that make such an
impact on the global economy, hunger and the situation of need of so
many people. In fact, the planet continues to have the means to ensure
access to food for everyone. However, greed, deceit and the quest for
power that reside in the heart of man make him insensitive to the other.
Therefore, the Church knows that together with her active collaboration
with the international community, her greatest contribution to solving
the problem of hunger is the appeal to consciences to change, so that by
recognizing the primacy of God, they may also recognize the dignity of
every man, created in His image and likeness (cfr "World Hunger" n. 64).
The Church offers to every person of good will this unique spiritual
mission to seek that co-existence, in which all people can live in
accordance with that dignity.
I thank you for your attention.
|
