Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, recently spoke at the FAO headquarters for Latin America in Santiago, Chile.

During his address, he emphasized the need to move away from market-oriented thinking and take concrete steps to combat hunger while fostering a sense of global brotherhood.

He shared the stage with Chilean Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Esteban Valenzuela, and FAO Chief Economist, Dr. Máximo Torero, as they discussed the critical issue of food losses and waste in the context of food and nutrition security, highlighting its multifaceted nature that requires cooperation across sectors.

Archbishop Paglia's impassioned address at the FAO headquarters in Santiago, Chile, continued to echo Pope Francis' powerful words, emphasizing that the act of discarding people, rather than food, is a grievous moral offense.

He drew attention to the stark contrast in Latin America, where only 6% of global food waste occurs, yet a staggering 47 million people grapple with hunger, with Haiti serving as a poignant example.

In a call for paradigm shifts, he urged a transition from viewing the problem solely as food waste to the waste of human lives. He stressed that food production and distribution should serve as means to enhance lives and create a just society, rather than as ends driven solely by economic gain.

Archbishop Paglia invoked Pope Francis' message, which underlined the need to transcend market-driven greed and embrace the logic of solidarity in addressing hunger.

He cautioned that true solidarity goes beyond benevolence, encompassing the collective effort to build a global human family, as highlighted in Pope Francis' encyclical, Fratelli Tutti.

In closing, he reiterated the connection between fighting hunger and combating waste, emphasizing the importance of gathering resources to redistribute rather than producing solely for dispersion, drawing a poignant parallel to Jesus' directive to collect leftover loaves after feeding the multitude.

The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life firmly declared that the mindset of disposability stands in stark contrast to the teachings of the Gospel. He emphasized the profound message conveyed from the opening pages of the Bible, which proclaims the inherent goodness of everything on Earth.