World Food Day
Organised by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Food Day calls for ‘global solidarity to help all populations, and especially the most vulnerable, to recover from the [Covid-19] crisis, and to make food systems more resilient and robust so they can withstand increasing volatility and climate shocks, deliver affordable and sustainable healthy diets for all, and decent livelihoods for food system workers.’ I imagine that most of us would be ready to sign up to that aspiration, as something that applies both on our doorstep and around the world, from foodbanks to refugee camps to struggling rural communities. The challenge comes when turning the aspiration into practice. Many around the world are struggling to provide the next meal. In many places it is increasingly difficult to get a harvest from the land or the sea. There are groups who have a vested interest, political or financial, in not effecting change. Sometimes we are more interested in a bargain or obtaining our favourite food, than thinking about the issues around it
Lord, food is basic to life, we depend upon it to live. We pray for all whose work is connected to food, for all who are hungry, for all who are working to achieve a ‘resilient…affordable and sustainable’ food system, for those who are trying to prevent it because it isn’t in their financial interest, and for ourselves – that we will think seriously about the issues and not just try to ignore them
