WCC FEATURE: Churches respond to food crisis: Overcome humanity's greed

[WCC Media]

World Council of Churches - Feature
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media at wcc-coe.org


For immediate release - 05/06/2008 17:31:56

OVERCOME HUMANITY'S "GREED": CHURCHES RESPOND TO THE FOOD
CRISIS


By Jean Blaylock (*)

The plea "Give us this day our daily bread" needs to be heard by
world leaders meeting in Rome on the global food crisis, say
church representatives across the globe.

"The Lord's Prayer highlights that having enough to eat is, and
has always been, central to the Christian idea of a world shaped
by justice and mercy," observed Sushant Agrawal, Director of the
Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) in India. "If God's
will was done, no one would go hungry." 

At present 854 million people - one person in every eight - are
hungry, and the current crisis caused by rapid increase in food
prices may add another 100 million people to that count.

While the summit takes place in Rome, churches around the world
have been sharing about their advocacy work on the underlying
causes of the current desperate situation. The World Council of
Churches (WCC), ACT International, ACT Development and the
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) asked their members and
participants what campaigning and advocacy actions they were
taking around the food crisis, along with any humanitarian or
long-term development assistance. 

"The WCC views the primary cause of the current crisis as
inappropriate human actions which have induced climate change and
skyrocketing food prices," declared the WCC general secretary
Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. "Human actions that are driven by greed
have created poverty, hunger and climate change. Humanity must be
challenged to overcome its greed."

In the survey of church engagement in advocacy, Leena Hokkanen
from DIACONIA in Peru highlighted the extent of the problem: "In
the zones where our institution works chronic infant malnutrition
runs at 56%."

"The current crisis exposes the vulnerability of many poor
people to price fluctuations and the limited ways in which they,
and often their governments, are able to mitigate the effects of
the crisis," observed Oliver Pearce from UK-based Christian Aid.
"We are calling for more space and tools to be available for
communities and governments to deal with the effects of changing
prices, in order to support vulnerable urban and rural
communities."

Churches are acting locally and thinking globally. Eliana
Rolemberg, Director of CESE, a Brazilian organization, described
work they are doing to advocate for food sovereignty of rural
traditional populations, especially indigenous groups. Their
efforts also address food security issues arising from increasing
land use for biofuels in Brazil and from social and environmental
impact of specific large development projects. Balancing this,
she declared, "We think it is crucial to interlink responses for
international advocacy, as these local issues are part of a
global context."

Churches around the world have developed many factsheets and
other resources that help to explain how and why the food crisis
has come about and suggest ways in which we can try and bring
about just and sustainable solutions to hunger. (Some of these
are available at www.e-alliance.ch/trade_foodcrisis.jsp.)

For the churches, these concerns are long-standing. Peter Prove
of the Lutheran World Federation said, "Churches and
church-related organizations around the world have been working
on these issues for years. The food crisis is not a short term
problem that has come from nowhere."

"We are looking at how the food crisis is rooted in financial,
trade, and agricultural policies at the national and
international levels" explained James E. Hug, President of the
US-based Center of Concern.

"Church groups around the world are and have been responding to
the food crisis in a comprehensive way" said Rev. Elenora
Giddings Ivory, Director of the WCC's Commission of the Churches
on International Affairs. "Their work in helping with the
immediate emergency need and running long term development
programmes to improve food security is complemented by
challenging unjust systems and structures that contribute to
hunger."

The WCC, ACT International, ACT Development and the EAA plan to
continue facilitating information sharing between church groups
on the issue and will take part in a civil society conference at
the end of the year entitled "Confronting the global food
challenge".

Nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther explained "When you ask for
your ‘daily bread', you ask for everything that is necessary in
order to have and enjoy daily bread and on the contrary,
[protection] against everything that interferes with enjoying
it". Churches continue to take action to change systems that
hinder people from having the food they need to survive.

[718 words]

(*) Jean Blaylockis a Global Trade Campaign Officer at the
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. 

This feature is released jointly by the World Council of
Churches, ACT International, ACT Development and the Ecumenical
Advocacy Alliance.



Opinions expressed in WCC Features do not necessarily reflect
WCC policy. This material may be reprinted freely, providing
credit is given to the author. 

Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363 media at wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 347 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.