Australia’s weather bureau says there are clear signs El Nino is developing in the eastern Pacific, raising concerns over the potential impact of the weather event on agriculture at time of soaring global food prices. Prices are already up because of a drought in the United States and other food-exporting countries. Leading members of the Group of 20 nations were planning to hold a conference call at the end of August over soaring grain prices, aiming to avoid a repeat of the food price spike that triggered riots in poorer countries in 2008.
“Above all, we need to respect life and therefore make available for every person a minimum of food so that life may be possible,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Permanent Observer of Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva. “The G20 that may meet in the next couple of months to address the issue of food in the world will have to take into account some of these considerations that are coming from…the social doctrine of the Church, and the voice of the Pope, especially in his latest social encyclical Caritas in Veritate.”