Honey bee farming at Soulihull. Photo: Ellen Teague.
"We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, now we are going to live on the internet". This quote is from the film 'The Social Network', voiced by a media guru.
The quote struck me forcibly when I first heard it. It is true of the last three generations of my family – my grandparents spent all their lives on farms in Ireland, my parents moved to a city - London, and now I tend to live on the Internet. However, this can also be inaccurate. We spend a lot of time on the Internet but cannot live there. Despite all our modern trappings, what we need to live on is as essential as it ever was – air, water and food. And these cannot be virtual!
Internationally, 733 million people face hunger, and over 2.8 billion are unable to afford a healthy diet. This is despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognising the right to food as a basic human need. On the other hand, food is often taken for granted and unappreciated by many. To help address this, World Food Day is celebrated annually on 16 October. This date honours the founding date of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and the theme for 2024 is the "Right to foods for a better life and a better future."
But why do so many people have to cope with hunger and poor nutrition?
Small-scale food producers feed 70% of the world's population, producing food for local markets and communities using ecological techniques. However, this is threatened by the growing dominance of corporations in the global food system. International agribusiness is grabbing more land, pushing privatised seeds, and promoting mass usage of expensive chemical inputs. As big business profits, small farmers struggle to keep control of land, seeds, and their way of life.
For two decades, Columbans have believed that the introduction of genetically modified crops and food items on the pretext of feeding the hungry is wrong. It raises serious moral, spiritual and environmental issues and puts the control of food resources in the hands of profit-driven corporations. Columbans have joined lobbies to challenge industrial agriculture and the companies that push it, such as Monsanto. Columbans have highlighted the plight of farmers seduced into growing transgenic crops, tribal communities robbed of their local genetic riches through patenting laws, and the loss of diversity in native food species through genetically modified crop contamination. In some places, like the Philippines, Columbans run organic farms.
Here in Britain, we have supported the 'Fix the Food System' campaign of CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), a Caritas agency that supports farmers' rights to save, use, exchange, and sell their own seeds. It urges the UK government and the World Bank to protect small-scale farmers. For generations, they have freely swapped and shared a wide variety of seeds to produce food and maintain biodiversity. More recently, small farmers have also developed seeds that ensure crops are more resilient to climate change.
Food security has also been undermined by some disastrous decisions that human society has made about development paths, leading to a loss of habitat and poisoning of the environment. Did you know that every third bite of food we consume depends on bee pollination, but hundreds of millions of bees worldwide have disappeared? Do we realise how much this matters? Columbans in Britain now have beehives at our headquarters near Birmingham; Columbans also campaigned to protect biodiversity, and their 2023/24 Schools Media competition in Britain and Ireland focused on the theme of 'Biodiversity Matters'.
The global issue of Climate Change needs to be addressed in a much more deliberate way. Climate change is a factor in the chronic drought, falling crop yields, and loss of livestock, which affect many countries. Columbans in Fiji have supported Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva, who told a Vatican conference in June that "the world has yet to really listen deeply to the voices, particularly to the cries, of Oceania people." They face loss of livelihoods and a less fruitful environment due to climate change – exacerbated by mining - and demand urgent action by the international community. According to the UN Development Programme, approximately 75% of the population of Pacific Island nations is affected by more severe weather shocks.
Conflict also undermines food production. In Myanmar, Columbans report that tens of thousands of Christians who have endured persecution since the coup of 2021 have been left destitute by the bombing of villages and by soldiers stealing their cows, pigs and chickens. Displaced people are without a secure food supply.
We must relearn our appreciation of food here in Britain. The organisation Green Christian suggests that the food we consume should follow the LOAF principles as far as possible. LOAF stands for Locally produced, Organically grown, Animal-friendly, and Fair-traded food.
We could reflect on some critical occasions in our lives involving sharing food and the connection between food and faith. Despite the Catholic focus on a Eucharistic meal and celebrating the gifts of creation, Christians have often alienated themselves from the natural world, which provides the air, forests, water, soil, crops, and animals we depend upon for life.
On the positive side, beautiful liturgies will mark World Food Day and the Harvest Season in our parishes and schools. An increasing number of schools are eco-schools and are part of the "Food for Life" programmes, where food is grown in school green spaces. Through growing food, children can see, smell, touch, and taste first-hand the miraculous and fragile processes of birth, growth, death, decay, and rebirth that are all part of God's wonderful creation.
The connection between food and faith brings people together. Photo: St Columbans Mission Society
Previous generations of farming families would have understood that Earth - 'Our 'Common Home', according to Laudato Si - hosts an ecological web of relationships. Among many of the world's great faith traditions, eating food is accompanied by some form of a grace-saying act. Saying grace shows that we do not take food and our lives for granted. Let's give thanks by saying Grace on World Food Day.
Ellen Teague is a London-based member of the Columban Justice, Peace and Ecology Team.
Related links
- Read more from the current Columban eBulletin