With food plentiful, failure in distribution causes hunger, Vatican envoy tells UN
October 29, 2014
Speaking to a UN session on food security, the Vatican’s representative observed that the problem of hunger today is caused not by an overall shortage of food but by a failure to distribute the available food to those in need.
Archbishop Bernardito Auza spoke of “the paradox that while so many die of hunger, an enormous quantity of food is wasted every day.” He said:
Yet it is not for lack of food in the world that they suffer acute hunger, because the current levels of world food production are sufficient to feed everyone. The problem lies elsewhere, such as in the lack of conservation technologies among smallholder producers, in weak or absent government support to incentivize the commercialization of products, or in the lack of infrastructure for better food distribution and marketing. Sadder still, this paradox is also due to a throwaway culture in affluent societies, to deliberate large-scale destruction of food products to keep prices and profit margins high, as well as to other policies that override the common objective of food security for all.
The archbishop remarked that although chronic hunger is less widespread today than it was 25 years ago, there are still 850 million people suffering from lack of food, and 51 million children facing the risk of death because of malnutrition.
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