The world has enough resources to feed the planet's growing population if political leaders can get past "short-term interests", the chief of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Sunday at ceremonies marking World Food Day.
"Today the world has the resources and technology to produce sufficient quantities of food not only to meet the demand of a growing population, but also to bring an end to hunger and poverty," said the FAO's Senegalese director, Jacques Diouf, at the organisation's Rome headquarters.
Diouf added that he "dared to hope" that politicians would "make decisions based on the social harmony of a world of solidarity and peace, not on short-term interests that can lead to injustice and social unrest."
The United Nations estimated that 852 million people world-wide went without enough food in 2004, a rise of 10 million over the previous year, indicating that food crises have become more frequent around the world.
Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said Friday that every day some 100,000 people die of malnutrition.
World Food Day is celebrated each year on this date, the anniversary of the founding of the FAO in 1945. The UN food agency will hold special ceremonies marking its 60th anniversary on Monday with world leaders including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe's leader, Robert Mugabe.
Pope Benedict XVI at his Sunday Angelus blessing also called on politicians to fight against poverty. And in a message to the FAO's Diouf, the pope said on Saturday that famine was caused by human selfishness and the profit motive as well as by atmospheric or geographical circumstances.
Comments
Comments are closed.