Holy See diplomat rebukes EU, US agricultural subsidies, says Africa needs international support

October 28, 2009

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, called upon the international community to support Africa in recent remarks to the United Nations General Assembly.

After criticizing media caricatures of Africa as a continent with little but “extreme poverty, coups d’état, corruption, and regional conflicts,” Archbishop Migliore called upon the international community to increase its development aid to Africa even amid the economic crisis. In an implicit but unmistakable rebuke to US and EU agricultural policies, he criticized wealthy nations whose agricultural subsidies permit the export of goods to Africa at artificially low prices; these subsidies, he noted, limit “the ability of African farmers to make a living wage.”

Offering a concrete example of the harmful effects of agricultural subsidies on the world’s poorest nations, Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, then chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, told Catholic World Report in 2008 that “some experts estimate that US subsidies to cotton depress the global price of a bale of cotton by 12% on average. That may not sound like much when cotton is sold for 72 cents a pound, but for poor farmers in West Africa, a few cents here and there can add up to medicine for a sick family member or school fees to send another child to school. Subsidized cotton from the US can even put them out of business altogether.”

Archbishop Migliore made his remarks on October 21; the Holy See Press Office released them on October 27.

 

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Further information:

• Statement Of The Holy See At The 64th Session Of The UN General Assembly Before The Plenary, On Item 63: New Economic Partnership For Africa’s Development: Progress In Implementation And International Support (Holy See)
• The New Partnership for Africa's Development