"Starving people is a very cheap way of waging war". In his opening message to the FAO session this morning, Pope Leo XIV issued a firm a denunciation: "Today, when the majority of conflicts are not fought by conventional armies but by armed civilian groups with limited resources, the tactics of burning land, stealing livestock, and obstructing aid are being increasingly employed by those who aspire to control entire defenseless populations". In these war circumstances, the primary military goals, according to the Pontiff, "become water supply networks and communication routes", adding that farmers "cannot sell their products in contexts threatened by violence and inflation skyrockets. This causes an immense number of people to succumb to hunger and death, with the added complication that, while citizens are debilitated by poverty, political elites are fattening on corruption and impunity". To the Pope, "the social injustice caused by natural disasters and the loss of biodiversity must be reversed in order to achieve a just ecological transition that places the environment and people at the center". It is necessary, he wrote, to “rethink and renew our food systems in a perspective of solidarity, overcoming the logic of the ruthless exploitation of creation and better directing our commitment to cultivating and caring for the environment and its resources, to guarantee food security and move towards sufficient and healthy nutrition for all".