Providing food aid to people in need is not enough to eradicate world hunger, Pope Francis said in a message marking the celebration of World Food Day on Oct. 16. An overhaul of the entire framework of aid policies and food production is needed so that countries can be in charge of their own agricultural markets, he said. “For how long will systems of production and consumption that exclude the majority of the world’s population even from the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich continue to be defended?” he asked. “The time has come to start thinking and deciding based on each person and community and not from market trends,” he said. The United Nations estimates that 842 million people worldwide are chronically hungry. Pope Francis said it is “one of the most tragic paradoxes of our time” that there can be so many people going hungry in a world where there is an “enormous quantity of food wasted, products destroyed and price speculation in the name of the god of profit.”

This article appears in November 3 2014.