Region-Caritas: food for everyone fighting waste

"Saying, do what, participate to feed the world "is the theme of the study day, discussion and planning for the right to food in Tuscany, which was held Friday 13 March in the Great Hall of the Seminary of Florence.

Opened the proceedings Mons. Riccardo Fontana, Cet delegate for charity.

After the greetings of Stefania Saccardi, Vice President of the Region, and Gianni Salvadori, agriculture commissioner, report Antonietta Potente, "The globalization of indifference. Food and relations of peace ".

Followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Antonello Riccelli, Andrea with Rails, "Finance can not bet on the food", Luca Falasconi, "Food and wastage, reverse course ", and Donatella Turri, "Ensuring the right to food in Tuscany. A shared ". After the debate, the conclusions of Alessandro Martini, delegate of Caritas Tuscan. The morning ended with a buffet "good, solidarity and fair ".

Between 30 and the 50% food production is thrown. What to do to reverse these trends.

Donatella Turri, director of Caritas of Lucca and Head of Group global education of Caritas Tuscan, explained so the initiative Florentine: "The campaign is supported nationally by many acronyms that we invited and involved at regional level. We hope that their presence and participation of the institutions allows us also to deepen the paths of future cooperation together to find appropriate responses in Tuscany on the issue of access to food as a right enforceable. End that, the themes of the campaign have worked very, but concealed. The theme of food is part of the DNA of our church community. Support to families and food to people in need, for example, is one of the most common and traditional responses that communities organize to fight poverty and social marginalization. And yet, absolutely right, often of the many issues related to food does not talk much or is silent. Often there is no awareness of the complexity that is expressed in our flat. Keep away the problems related to situations of severe deprivation of many regions of the world, considering something far ".

"Likewise, it is hard to question the mechanisms that regulate the production, distribution, consumption, wastage of food even in our territories. We are however convinced that today it is absolutely necessary to raise again a discussion aware, careful, passionate in our communities about food. Only this awareness can guide us in the search together credible answers, authentic the food poverty in both global and local ".

In fact we are accustomed to think that hunger is a problem in certain areas of the third world, instead also increase in Tuscany families who are without sufficient food. "The data collected in each of the Caritas Diocese Tuscan among those who come to the centers of listening tell the reality of so many who are struggling to satisfy their food needs. As the dossier 2014 well emphasized in the title, often to push the edge are unemployment and precarious housing. Even the food poverty, growing in our area, is the result of complex processes of impoverishment, which are subject to several factors: job loss, debt, taking charge of poverty by the institutions partial and often poorly coordinated and insufficient. The consequence is that even in our cities access to food for many is not guaranteed adequately and not only among those who are in the so-called 'extreme poverty', but also to many families quite placeable in the 'gray zone of discomfort' due to the recent loss of employment, family break. The tragic fact, then, is that more and more children are being exposed to this risk. The United Nations defines the right of access such as the ability to access food on a regular basis, permanent, free food to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate, corresponding to the tradition, can develop a serene life, date, worthy both individually and collectively. Many of the families who come to the Counselling Centres Caritas today eat cheap things, that you cook easily and ask for little gas to be cooked. Substantially pasta and sweets manufacturing industry ".

Then there's the flip side: us too much food is wasted. "It is a scandal spread of our societies. According to the latest data from an amount of food between 30 and the 50% of world production will be thrown before arriving on our tables. Almost simultaneously 1 billion people suffer from chronic malnutrition. These two realities can not coexist without asking serious, serious problems of conscience ".

Also because the waste is not just about the food. "Wasting food means first having wasted water, the earth, the work that has been required to produce. really a paradox of catastrophic magnitude. For this, Today one can not fight against food waste. The fight against waste must become imperative in the way we organize society that we live. We can avoid the waste at all levels of the chain that brings food on our plate: production level, at distribution level and then to the level of the consumer, of all of us ".

"Just think of the fruits and vegetables so-called 'out of gauge', namely that it is too small or too large to be sold… today often ends just in the trash, is thrown, although not only edible, but good… we must have rules that saved all this food, invent new mechanisms to get it in the dishes. How Caritas for years thanks to the Law of the Good Samaritan, that equates to the final consumer organizations that distribute free food, we moved to save the food from becoming prematurely refusal in supermarkets and recently also in canteens, collecting the food is not distributed and making him arrive at the cafeteria of the poorest. The Food Bank is taking the lead on this and so many other. But not enough. Not just until they systematically organize our cities against waste ".

Anche le singole famiglie possono fare qualcosa per evitare sprechi in casa: "First you need to go back to being very aware of the value of food and teach it to children. What we eat, when we eat a strawberry, eg? It is a fruit? It is a flower? What are the seasonal nature of the things we consume? How much water is used to grow our vegetables? And how much land consumption to keep the cattle? And then, can give us the rules small, small because our refrigerators are 'inhabited by justice': grocery shopping in a more prudent, with the eye not so much to offers, As to the real needs of the family. Move closer to forms of consumer awareness and shared as Buying groups in solidarity, for example, encourage short chain. And then learn how to use the leftovers creatively. and so on ".

Tuscany has long been an active part to solve the problem: "Already in many dioceses are having long been the model of 'emporia' which replaced the 'food parcels'. They promote auditing experience of family budgets and styles of consumption among the volunteers and all who ask for help to listening centers. It encourages the direct production, Short filiera, social farming. You fight the waste through the collection of unused, are organized in a local grocery answers. The major issues that revolve around the theme of food today are those of the 'relationship' and 'resilience' (react in a positive way to traumatic events, ed) The challenge for communities is to become promoters of responses that should see to the food poverty also as a symptom of exclusion mechanisms complex and layered and take over that responsibility by encouraging the relationship with those in need and their ability to react. Increasingly tissue Caritas tries to move away from dependency and dangerous enough to help create communities capable of inclusion and justice ".

In a few months it inaugurates the Milan Expo dedicated to food, manifestazione che può aiutare anche le nostre comunità a riflettere su questi temi: "Every opportunity is good. The Expo has many limitations and many, many contradictions. The goes however riconosicuto credit for having raised an issue that the food in complex ways and in so many points of view. Can become for this opportunity for our Church, as long as we face it with the eyes of the past and we feel compelled to bring the voice of the past on the agendas of our commitment and on the front pages of our current ".

Video interviews of Franco Mariani, filming Mauro Pocci.

Michael Lattanzi

By the number 56 - Year II 18/03/2015