Brothers and sisters, are you able to eat three times a day? Is the food you have enough for your family? Have you ever felt hunger even for a moment? If you say yes to these questions, you are not part of the 795 million people around the world who, according to the Food Aid Foundation, barely have enough food. Many of these people live in poor countries where almost 13 percent of their population are devoid of food.
From the records of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 80 percent of the poor in the whole world live in rural areas, which is familiar to us in the Philippines. These poor people usually rely on food coming from farmlands or seas, and if there aren’t any produce or catch, they would go hungry. This is a problem especially for farmers and fishermen who don’t have the capability to start their own business.
The FAO added that over 90 percent of farmlands in the whole world are being developed by farmer-families that supply over 80 percent of food in the world. Ironically, the little farmers and their families are the ones who usually have shortage of food. This is the context of the declaration by the UN Decade of Family Farming, starting in 2019. Members of the UN submitted a resolution to recognize the role of family farming in the development and advocacy for a rich and healthy world, wherein communities in rural areas and cities have equal share of freedoms in life from hunger and suffering, and to live with dignity.
There are seven pillars that determine the success of the UN Decade of Family Farming’s goals. First is having policies that strengthen family farming. Second, the support of the youth to ensure the continuous farming of their families. Third, promote equality of men and women in the agricultural sector. Fourth, reinforce the unions of farming families. Fifth, improve and fortify the life status of farming families. Sixth, support in continuing farming families and in being capable of enduring through the changes in climate. And lastly, to build up the different aspects of family farming in order to develop their ways and systems of production and to also preserve their culture and environment. Like what Pope Francis has emphasized in his message regarding the UN Decade of Family Farming, we witness the significance within families and humanity, all creations, and agriculture. And since it is within families where we first learn how to live well and right with others and with our environment, family farming serves a primary role in developing the agriculture that binds the people that do not destroy the environment. In helping family farming improve in the rural areas, we will see an important principle from the social teachings of the Church—subsidiarity. In subsidiarity, we recognize the abilities of those from the lower levels of social class—like families—to enhance the order of society.
Brothers and sisters, it is important to give attention to Filipino farming families, particularly because they not only strive at their work, they are also included in those who severely experience hunger. As Christians, we must understand it is inhuman to let our fellow people starve. In the book of John 6:5-13, we witnessed that Jesus did not allow 5,000 people to starve even if they only had five loaves of bread and two small fish. May this also be our goal this UN Decade of Family Farming.
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