Food summit turns down U.N. funding appeal

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI decried the rise in hunger in what he called a world often ruled by profit in an address to a food summit Monday shortly after it rebuffed a U.N. appeal to commit billions of dollars annually to helping farmers in poor countries.

Some 60 heads of state and dozens of ministers from other nations rejected the U.N.'s call to commit to $44 billion annually for a new strategy focusing on agricultural development in poor nations as a way to enable farmers to produce enough food for their own countries.

"Hunger is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty," said Benedict. "Opulence and waste are no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions."

It was unclear if Benedict was referring directly to the failure to secure money pledges as sought by the U.N. food agencies, but Vatican Radio on Monday called the lack of a firm money commitment "disturbing."

U.N. officials say roughly 1 billion people — one of every six people on the planet — don't get enough to eat.

The world's wealthiest nations put forward the strategy focusing on agricultural aid at the Group of Eight summit this summer in L'Aquila, Italy.

It was endorsed by attendees hours after the start of the three-day meeting in Rome, the third food summit there since 2002 grappling with the goal of fighting hunger.

"God bless your efforts to ensure that all people are given their daily bread," Benedict told the delegates from 192 countries as he wished them well in their decisions.

Benedict also lamented the practice of destroying surplus crops "for economic gain" as well as "the logic of profit viewed as an end in itself" when deciding trade policies.

He advocated favoring access to international markets for products "coming from the poorest areas,which today are often relegated to the margins."

Benedict said that financial support for these nations should be "inspired by solidarity, enabling them to provide for their own requirements of consumption and development" and he cited "the right to sufficient, healthy and nutritious food" and water must be upheld, the pope said.

The last previous papal appearance at a food summit in Rome came in 1996, when Pope John Paul II delivered a speech.