Introduction
This, indeed, is a propitious occasion for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Holy See, not only to help widen the scope of reference of the conversation about how to prevent and mitigate Food and Humanitarian Crises with Science and Policy formulation; it is also an occasion to invite the Holy See to bring her moral authority and her teaching of ethics for food justice in a post Covid-19 recovery world, ridden with conflict and displacement of peoples, as we see in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Sudan. For, the question of hunger and access to food, is a truly moral issue, since it is about the lives of human persons, as the past three Popes have variously observed. Using Cardinal Cardijn’s famous discernment process of see, judge and act, we shall look at an ethical compass for navigating instances of food and humanitarian crises.
See
Hunger is too real in this world. We either experience it or know about it. We do not lack information and reminders about millions of impoverished human beings who lack nourishment for body, mind and spirit. In fact, we are inundated by information about malnutrition, hunger and starvation through reports, figures and statistics by UN agencies like Rome’s own Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), IFAD, by national Governments, NGOs, academic and research units; and by media images of conflict and climate which have caused hungry men, women and children.
In at least two workshops of this Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Reduction of food losses and waste in 2019 and on Science and innovation for a sustainable food system in 2021, and in webinars, on women and food and on jobs, technology and food justice which the Vatican office for development prepared with the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to FAO, IFAD and WFP, the scary and disconcerting state of our global food system was graphically presented and analysed. They showed how local Caritas groups and humanitarian aid organizations help to shore up the deficiencies and disparities in access to food through their food production and distribution networks. They illustrated the observations of FAO experts that global hunger has been on the rise for several years already: that in 2019 the number of undernourished people in the world had increased by 60 million in relation to 2014, and this in spite of the increase in food production. They feared that, even discounting the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, this trend would result in 840 million hungry people in the world by 2030 – far from the Zero Hunger objective contained in Sustainable Development Goal #2;[1] and if the pandemic worsened the situation for us, the climate crisis, poor governance and raging conflicts around the world with population displacements are bound to make the situation truly dismal.
Just as 3 Ts (tierra, techo, trabajo) express the need-drivers of grass-root movements and the Latin American Popular Movements, so do 3 Cs (conflict, Covid-19 and climate change) capture the key drivers of food scarcity and hunger in the world today. Their combined devastating effects on all stages of food production and its supply chain are alarming. It is estimated that the pandemic alone plunged over 132 million people into undernourishment.[2] This was particularly true of the countries in Southern Africa; and just as their food systems were beginning to recover from the ravages of Covid-19, the recent spate of storms and flooding from tropical cyclones have plunged them into a beggarly dependence on humanitarian food and water. Indeed, behind every one of these numbers are people going to bed hungry; families who cannot bring food to the table; and children whose growth and development is stunted.
Judge
As Pope Francis observed on the occasion of the World Food Day (Oct, 2020): “For humanity, hunger is not only a tragedy but it is also shameful”. In fact, as he wrote in Fratelli Tutti (189), “hunger is criminal”, since “food is an inalienable right”. Pope Benedict XVI illustrated the point about the “right to food” in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (n. 27) saying: “the right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination” (Civ. §27).
Food insecurity, however, is not simply a lack of food. A series of inter-connected factors which affect food production and distribution in all its stages underlie the crisis of food insecurity. They are economic, ecological, political, social and cultural (religious and traditional). Therefore, the crisis of food insecurity is a complex and multi-faceted issue, and its solution must recognize this complexity and seek to address it in all its dimensions. Therefore, food systems in a post Covid-19, conflict-ridden and climate-plagued world must be more robust, resilient and sustainable; and reimagining and regenerating such robust food systems requires a holistic approach, in the sense in which integral ecology is presented in Laudato Si’ (§137ff). Every factor which is contributory to the crisis of food insecurity and humanitarian crisis must be reckoned with: nothing left to chance or considered as an independent variable. Everything is inter-connected and inter-dependent: ecological, economic, political, cultural, religious etc.!
From the religious and anthropological points of view, we recall the observation of Pope Francis that: “The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life”, (LS §2). Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI also believes that: “The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa…”, so that contemporary society needs to review its lifestyle (Civ §51). In this sense, the crisis of food insecurity is not unrelated to the way we treat ourselves and the environment. It is as much an anthropological issue as it is ecological, economic, political, lifestyle etc. And, if as Pope Benedict XVI notes: “The elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet” (Civ §27), then, indeed, the peace of the world depends on how we deal with hunger in the world!
Act … An Ethical Compass/Trajectory Out of Crises
So, how do we deal with hunger?
When in 2015 Italy hosted the Food Expo in Milan, it mounted a campaign that called for a “change in lifestyle through the collective force of our moral and spiritual energies” to overcome hunger. The Expo encouraged support for local initiatives which included cutting waste, maximizing land use for food production, help for women in agriculture, application of the fruits of scientific research in farming and food production, and making peace the really indispensable context for food production.
But the greatest contribution of the 2015 Food Expo to overcoming hunger lay in the theme of the Expo itself: “One human family, food for all” was the prophetically pregnant title and slogan of the Milan Expo. Simply converting the first part of the title/slogan into a conditional clause, we would have a statement of a pre-condition which is necessary for a solution of the food crisis and world hunger. So, if instead of reading: “one human family, food for all”, we read: “when we live as one human family, there is food for all”, such a reading of the Expo theme immediately indicates a solution to global hunger; a solution that is anthropological and human; and it also makes global hunger truly a human issue. For, hunger comes from a lack of solidarity, hunger comes from failing to feel, to relate to and to behave as brothers and sisters. And like every great human issue, global hunger immediately became a moral or ethical issue. It involves the exercise of human freedom: We are free to show disinterest and indifference. We are free to exercise good will; and in our creativity, we are free to act responsibly/show responsibility or not. The choice is no one’s but our own. That is why in his video message to the opening ceremony of the Expo, Pope Francis called for a change of mentality and lifestyle.
From the lessons of the 2015 Expo in Milan, we may now identify two fundamental principles to inspire and guide action: the dignity of each human being and the common good.[3] In making decisions in light of these principles, we are inevitably drawn towards actions that are ethical and that:
- support and expand the development of agricultural workers and respect their innate dignity
- support small producers and cooperatives that adopt less polluting and more inclusive means of production (cf. Laudato Si’, 112);
- apply the new technologies available into the agricultural and fishing industries that help “tilling and keeping” the earth (cf. Gn 2,15); this means working it while caring for it (cf. Laudato Si’, 67); and
- implement a global system that respects our common home by allowing for the regeneration of resources and the distribution of the fruits of the earth equitably.
In fact, the principle of the common good is inextricably linked with the universal destination of goods, since “it is not in accord with God’s plan that [the Earth’s] gift[s] be used in such a way that … benefit … only a few” and unjustly leave behind a great part of humanity (Laudato Si’, 93).
Food for all (justice) is not an impossible enterprise. What is needed is the courage to put those talents and our creativity to the service of something new, something that is guided by a genuine anthropology: the true character and sense of the human person, as a relational being with a vocation to realize its common good in and through solidarity. Indeed, “when we live as one human family, there is food for all”! Mitigating the current global food and humanitarian crisis is not an impossibility. It is an invitation to a re-discovery of our humanity: as relational being, inter-connected and inter-dependent, wired to respond to solidary conduct for the dignity and wellbeing of all!
[1] Sustainable Development Goal 2: Hunger.
[2] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2020. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020. Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9692en
[3] Cf. Compendium Social Doctrine of the Church, nn. 164-170.