Addressing the World Summit on Food Security, Pope Benedict has warned against the "greed" of cereal speculators and defended the right of each nation to defend its food security. "The international community is currently facing a grave economic and financial crisis," Pope Benedict told leaders gathered at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
"Statistics bear witness to the dramatic growth in the number of people suffering from hunger, made worse by the rise in price of foodstuffs, the reduction in economic resources available to the poorest peoples, and their limited access to markets and to food.
Citing his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict also highlighted the "need to oppose those forms of aid that do grave damage to the agricultural sector, those approaches to food production that are geared solely towards consumption and lack a wider perspective, and especially greed, which causes speculation to rear its head even in the marketing of cereals, as if food were to be treated just like any other commodity".
"The weakness of current mechanisms for food security and the need to re-examine them are confirmed, one might say, by the mere fact that this summit has been convoked".
"Within this overall context of responsibility, every country has the right to define its own economic model, taking steps to secure its freedom to choose its own objectives," the pope continued.
"If the aim is to eliminate hunger, international action is needed not only to promote balanced and sustainable economic growth and political stability, but also to seek out new parameters - primarily ethical but also juridical and economic ones - capable of inspiring the degree of co-operation required to build a relationship of parity between countries at different stages of development.
"This, as well as closing the existing gap, could favour the capacity of each people to consider itself an active player, thereby confirming that the fundamental equality of all peoples is rooted in the common origin of the human family, the source of those principles of ‘natural law' that should inspire political, juridical and economic choices and approaches in international life".
"In order to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to separate the rules of international trade from the logic of profit viewed as an end in itself," the pope said.
"Nor must the fundamental rights of the individual be forgotten, which include, of course, the right to sufficient, healthy and nutritious food, and likewise water," he concluded.
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