Pope to FAO: ‘Access to food is a basic human right’

Vatican City, October 16, 2026: “Regular access to safe, adequate and sufficient food, in keeping with the dignity of every person, is a basic human right. Guaranteeing this right is an obligation of justice that binds both individual States and the international community.”

Pope Leo XIV reiterated this principle in a message sent to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for this year’s World Food Day, observed on 16 October.

The message was read at a commemorative event on Friday by Monsignor Fernando Chica Arellano, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the FAO.

Addressing FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, the Pope referred to this year’s theme, “Innovate Today. Nourish Tomorrow”, and expressed his gratitude to the organisation for its international efforts.

Intolerable that water be considered ‘a contested commodity’ and bread ‘a privilege’

Pope Leo emphasised that, despite technological progress reaching unprecedented levels, “it is intolerable that bread should be considered a privilege and water a contested commodity.”

In his message, the Holy Father maintained “that hunger cannot be considered a statistical anomaly, as it is caused mainly by a lack of political will and collective charity,” rejecting the idea that food shortages are an inevitable consequence of geographical circumstances.

He pointed out that while innovations are accelerating production, the distribution of food continues to be neglected.

“Grain markets,” he lamented, “are being optimized on stock exchanges, while the actual seeds that germinate in the soil fall into the hands of monopolies that suffocate small-scale farming.”

Bread should not be an instrument of geopolitical pressure or war

The Holy Father explained that meeting the nutritional needs of future generations “requires freeing food production from a purely speculative mentality.”

“Bread,” the Pope stressed, “should be neither an instrument of geopolitical pressure nor a volatile financial asset. Nor must it ever be used as a weapon of war.”

“Indeed,” he continued, “it is a terrible offense against human dignity to prevent bread from reaching any person or to destroy the means by which it is produced.”

He highlighted the value of bread because it sustains the life given to us by God, emphasising the need to resist the temptation to focus solely on short-term interests.

Reaching a breaking point

The Holy Father observed that “the myth that growth can be endless when resources are limited” has now reached a “breaking point.”

He suggested that innovation today must be guided by a sense of responsibility towards future generations, extending beyond the limits of annual budgets.

Innovation, he continued, “means reconciling technology with wisdom, including ancestral wisdom, while maintaining a vision for the future.”

“It is not a matter of rejecting technological advances,” Pope Leo said, “but rather of integrating them with the wisdom of farmers who have deepened their understanding of the soil and the climate through centuries of conscientious observation.”

He added that this approach must also include safeguarding water as an inalienable common good.

Encouraging the FAO to continue contributing to the universal common good

In his message, the Pope urged the Food and Agriculture Organization and its member States “not to settle for abstract analyses or declarations of limited effectiveness.”

“Now is the time for moral audacity,” he said, underlining that “a new global food order is essential — one in which technological innovation is unconditionally subordinated to respect for God-given human dignity and the universal common good.”

The Pope also highlighted “an urgent ethical imperative to redirect resources invested in the war industry towards sustainable agricultural research and the regeneration of degraded soils.”

Courage to resist unethical innovation

The Holy Father stressed that tomorrow is “not an abstract span of time that awaits us passively”; instead, he insisted, “it is the harvest of what we sow today through our decisions.”

“If we sow unethical innovation based on a desire to dominate the earth and exclude the weak,” he said, “we will reap barrenness and strife.”

“If, on the other hand,” he observed, “innovation stems from respect for the natural order and justice for the hungry, tomorrow will bring a table spread wide for the nourishment of humanity.”

Courtesy: Vatican News