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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Share “excess” rice, activists urge
Food wasted in storehouses
In November, as Americans prepared to celebrate Thanksgiving—a national holiday recognizing God’s bounty and giving thanks for the harvest—Catholic activists in Europe were pleading with wealthy nations to share their food resources with those who were less fortunate.
More than 435,000 tons of rice—regarded as excess in countries within the European Union—were destined to rot in storehouses in Brussels while 800 million people in the world go hungry, the Vatican news agency Fides reported. The amount of rice stored in Brussels would be enough feed the peoples of the Horn of Africa for two months, and those of Eritrea for six, Fides added.
The alarm was sounded by the Italian volunteers association AVSI, which, with the support of a number of leading Italian politicians, has sent a petition to Franz Fischler, the European Union’s agriculture commissioner, and to the Italian minister of agricultural resources, Pecoraro Scanio. The petition—whose release was timed to coincide with a meeting of the agriculture ministers of the countries that make up the European Union—asks that the surplus rice be used to feed the hungry in underdeveloped countries.
Arturo Alberti, the president of AVSI, explains that the petition is intended to expose an injustice and to prompt an effort to find solutions. He pointed to the absurdity of allowing rice to rot while some people are in desperate need. “This scandal,” he said, “is the result of policies which, instead of having at heart the totality of the human person and human dignity, aim to maintain international market privileges and control.”
Back to Catholic World Report January 2001 Table of Contents