Pope Leo’s message for the 2026 World Food Day (16 October 2026)
Theme for World Food Day: “Innovate Today – Nourish Tomorrow”
Director-General of the FAO
Your Excellency,
1. The theme for this year’s World Food Day is “Innovate Today. Nourish Tomorrow.”
By helping the earth yield its fruit, humanity is not merely engaging in a technical operation, it is fulfilling the command to care for and cultivate the earth.
(Genesis 2:15 – The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it), This is a command that precedes all legal frameworks and technological innovations.
Nevertheless, we currently find ourselves in a paradoxical situation,
in which global progress is advancing at an ever-increasing pace,
while hunger and poverty continue to persist.
This is not a technical or financial problem,
but rather a profound anthropological and ethical crisis.
2. Today, people speak of innovation with great confidence.
However, this term is often used only in reference to the development of devices and algorithms, or the optimization of performance for financial gain alone.
Therefore, it is necessary to change the way we conceive of such progress.
Genuine innovation does not replace creation, rather, it involves reverently investigating the intricate laws that guide the Creator’s work.
Using appropriate technology to cultivate the land is an expression of humanity’s role as God’s collaborator in creation.
However, when modern technology is used in agriculture in ways that strip the soil of its natural fertility or drive farmers from their land, motivated solely for financial gain, it cannot be regarded as progress, but as a sophisticated form of destruction.
Furthermore, using technology irresponsibly for selfish interests rather than the common good violates the principle of solidarity and disregards humanity’s duty to safeguard creation.
Therefore the kind of innovation the world needs is not measured solely by the quantity of grain produced, but also by the protection of the human dignity that God has bestowed upon each of us and the integrity of the ecosystem that we are called to preserve.
3. Hunger cannot be considered a statistical anomaly because it is primarily caused by a lack of political will and collective charity.
Food shortages are also not geographically unavoidable.
In an era of unprecedented technological advancement, it is unacceptable that bread is considered a privilege and water is a contested commodity.
Access to safe, adequate, and sufficient food is a basic human right that should be guaranteed to everyone.
Ensuring this right is a just obligation binding both individual states and the international community.
Yet, while innovations accelerate production, distribution is neglected.
Stock exchanges optimize grain markets, while monopolies that suffocate small-scale farming take control of the actual seeds that germinate in the soil.
4. Ensuring that tomorrow’s nutritional needs will be met requires freeing food production from a purely speculative mentality.
Bread should not be used as a geopolitical tool or a volatile financial asset.
It must never be used as a weapon of war.
Indeed, it is a terrible offense against human dignity to prevent bread from reaching any person or to destroy the means by which it is produced.
Bread is precious because it sustains the life that God has given us.
Thus, we must overcome the temptation of short-term thinking.
The idea that growth can be endless when resources are limited has reached its breaking point.
Today, innovation requires adopting an intergenerational sense of responsibility that looks beyond annual budgets.
Innovation means reconciling technology with wisdom, including ancestral wisdom, while maintaining a vision for the future.
This does not mean rejecting technological advances, but rather integrating them with the knowledge of farmers who have developed a deep understanding of the soil and climate through centuries of careful observation.
This also means protecting water as an inalienable common good.
5. Mr Director-General, I encourage the Food and Agriculture Organization, and its member states, not to settle for abstract analyses or declarations of limited effectiveness.
Now is the time for moral audacity.
A new global food order is essential.
It needs to be one in which technological innovation is unconditionally subordinated to respect for God-given human dignity and the universal common good.
Furthermore, there is an urgent ethical imperative to redirect resources invested in the military-industrial complex toward sustainable agricultural research and the regeneration of degraded soils.
Tomorrow is not a passive span of time awaiting us; it is the harvest of what we sow today through our decisions.
If we pursue unethical innovations based on a desire to dominate the Earth and exclude the weak, we will reap barrenness and strife.
Conversely, if innovation stems from respect for the natural order and justice for the hungry, tomorrow will bring a bountiful table for the nourishment of humanity.