Statement by Archbishop Celestino Migliore: Agriculture development and food security
(October 24, 2009) “This year for the first time over 1 billion of the world’s population
is undernourished. Although the world produces enough food for the global community,
food demand continues to rise faster than the agricultural production,” said Archbishop
Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See at the
United Nations. He was speaking at the 64th session of the UN General Assembly, on
the topic of Agriculture development and food security. He added that inequities
and mismanagement of commodities and financial systems hamper the ability for all
to live in a world free of hunger. As consumption patterns change in developing countries,
agricultural land is used for non-agricultural purposes or remains removed from production,
and agricultural products are increasingly destined to non-nutritional purposes, said
the Prelate. Referring to the report of the World Bank and the FAO, the Archbishop
said that the statistics confirm that hunger has been on the rise for the past decade
and it was not created but rather accentuated by the current financial crisis. Increase
in hunger in all of the world’s major regions in times both of prosperity and economic
crisis point to a deeper cause, namely, to a weak world governance of food security,
he clarified. The Archbishop regretted that the real power of agriculture today seems
to reside not anymore in the hands of farmers, but is in the hands of those who control
credit and the distribution of new technology, of those concerned with transport,
distribution and sale of products. In addition, trade and market-distorting subsidies
must be reassessed in light of the need to ensure that in developing countries farmers
are able to participate in the national and global market. It is at these levels
that there is need to work on creating a new economy more attentive not only to profit,
but above all, to human needs and relations, concluded the Archbishop.