The current food crisis shines “a red light of alarm” on structural injustices in the agricultural economy worldwide, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva May 22. It was the second strong statement in less than a week by Vatican officials on the food crisis, which has sparked riots in several countries in recent months. The Vatican released a copy of the text May 23.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome reported food prices have risen 45 per cent over the last nine months, with the price of rice increasing 83 per cent since December. Much of the increase has been blamed on higher fuel costs.

Tomasi, who addressed a special session of the council on the right to food, said the surge in food prices threatens the stability of developing countries and calls for urgent international action.

“It calls attention to the dysfunction of the global trade system when four million people annually join the ranks of the 854 million plagued by chronic hunger,” he said.

“Hopefully, this session will open the eyes of public opinion on the worldwide cost of hunger, which so often results in lack of health and education, conflicts, uncontrolled migrations, degradation of the environment, epidemics and even terrorism.”

The archbishop said the current increase in prices may cause some inconvenience to families in developed countries, who spend about 20 per cent of their income on food.

“However, such prices are life-threatening for the one billion people living in poor countries, since they are forced to spend nearly all their daily income of $1 per day in search of food,” he said.

Tomasi emphasized that, according to numerous studies, the current crisis is caused not by lack of food but by lack of access to agricultural resources. The problem is fixable, he said, but not without structural changes. One problem, he said, is that the liberalization of trade in agricultural products tends to favour multinational businesses and harm production by small farms, which remain the base of food security in developing countries.

The archbishop called for:

• investments in agriculture and rural development;


• measures to curb food hoarding and price speculation;


• protection of individual property rights, including those of women;


• elimination of unfair food subsidies; and


• organization of co-operative structures to remedy the limitations faced by small farms.

“In this complex and urgent debate on the right to food, a new mentality is required. It should place the human person at the centre and not focus simply on economic profit,” he said.

At the United Nations in New York May 16, Archbishop Celestino Migliore also called for greater support of the world’s small farmers. He said the food crisis is taking a physical, mental and spiritual toll on the poorest populations.

Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, told the organization’s Commission on Sustainable Development that agricultural policies need to “rediscover the path of reason and reality” so that the needs of food production and the need to be good stewards of the Earth are balanced.