Cooperatives are ways to live solidarity, says Pope on World Food Day

October 16, 2012: World Food Day 2012 was celebrated on Tuesday with a theme “Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world.” It has been chosen to highlight the role of cooperatives in improving food security and contributing to the eradication of hunger.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his message sent to José Graziano da Silva, Director General of Food and Agricultural Organisation (F.A.O.) of the United Nations, said that ‘this year's World Food Day is celebrated while the effects of the economic crisis affect more and more basic needs, including the fundamental right of every person to a healthy and adequate nutrition, especially worsening the situation of those living in poverty and underdevelopment.’

The Pope expressed his satisfaction at the choice of this year’s theme saying that it is not just to give support to co-operatives as an expression of a different form of economic and social organization, but to consider it a true instrument of international action. Agricultural cooperatives are a concrete example to realize not only adequate levels of production and distribution, but also a more general growth of rural areas and communities in which people live, the Pontiff said.
Giving due priority to the human dimension cooperatives can overcome the purely technical profile of the agricultural work, re-evaluate the centrality of economic activity and thus promote appropriate responses to real local needs.
Faced with a growing demand for food, the work of agricultural cooperatives may be something more than a mere aspiration, showing in a concrete way possible to meet the demand of a growing world population.
The Catholic Church, also considers the work and co-operative enterprise as ways to live an experience of unity and solidarity that can overcome differences and even social conflicts between people and between different groups, the Pontiff added.
In a world in search of appropriate interventions to overcome the difficulties caused by the economic crisis and to make globalization truly human meaning, the experience of cooperatives well represents the new type of economy at the service of the person, capable of fostering forms of sharing and generosity that are the fruit of solidarity and fraternity respectively.
The Pontiff also recalled that the FAO was established in a similar context, which calls the national and international efforts to free humanity from hunger through agricultural development and growth of rural communities.