MARFAM WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER 10 SEPTEMBER 2025

Whether dealing with the G20 international governmental challenges or Season of Creation  or any family’s daily life, food has to feature, because food is for life, literally and figuratively, its quantity and quality. It can be said “some of us eat to live, others live to eat.  However my focus in this week’s Family Matters Radio Veritas program as well as any opportunity to highlight the Season of Creation picks up food in a variety of ways, e.g. security, nutrition, health, indigenous.  

Food has always been a necessity for all God’s creatures. Genesis 1 mentions that God gave people plants to eat – something which vegans and vegetarians like to stress.  But today there is a much greater openness towards plant-based diets and eating less meat, for health purposes and to some extent cost.  See this helpful resource: https://foodrevolution.org/

How food is acquired and consumed is part of each family’s culture and history from the earliest times as foraging and hunting. Growing and preparing food across the centuries has depended on knowledge, availability and survival needs. There would always have been times of plenty and times of scarcity but human and animal populations knew the terrain and could migrate to where food was available.  

How do things work in our modern, increasingly urbanized world with its vast numbers of people, many of whom have lost their own indigenous knowledge. Subsistence farming is still practiced in rural areas everywhere.  Even in urban areas there are places where some food is grown in home gardens or school and community food gardens and even in containers in apartment blocks and on roof-tops. A few families and communities are more or less self-sufficient, but today commercial farming and commercial food production, processing and distribution predominates. Children only know that food comes in packages, tins, boxes, and from the shop. In theory there should be no world food shortages as there is potential to provide for everyone with all the scientific and technological advances of our time. Is ethical action an answer on everyone’s part? Management and distribution are problems and can be related to cost and profit or a vision of the common good. If governments and industry focused more strongly on this basic need and addressed ethical issues of war, greed, corruption and inequality  would conferences e.g. G20 not be able to address and resolve these problems?   Together with the Season of Creation?   NGOs &  FBOs  play a role, by choice, or by calling with concern for the common good, not just of humanity but of all creation, as the Season of Creation invites us to do. To do or advocate for action by elected leaders, or equally importantly call us, as families, to responsibility for choosing wisely what is best and most healthy for us. The perspective of food for life calls us beyond our own needs too.   Food For Mzansi | The New Face of South African Agriculture

One of my current interests is food security. How real is it and where?  Is created dependency a factor? There are many aspects to consider in the bigger picture; cultural, sociological and economic.  My research found that indigenous crops, such as sorghum, millet, cowpea, amaranth, Bambara groundnut, and sweet potato, are excellent candidates for promoting food security due to their adaptability to harsh conditions, nutritional value, and resilience to climate change. These plants thrive in low-input, local environments, providing diverse food sources, particularly in the face of climate change too. Promoting their cultivation, research, and market integration can also boost rural economies and improve community health and resilience.  The G20 Interfaith Forum held in August included the priority of global hunger and food security. https://blog.g20interfaith.org/2025/07/28/south-africa-priority-1/

I have a story of my own about food security and indigenous plants, that started with my being given some amaranth seeds by a well-informed friend, but they got themselves scattered around our retirement village where some other, well-intentioned, people decided these plants are weeds and must be eradicated.  I fought back about that, which led to a whole string of good and bad events and my ongoing learning much more about indigenous edible plants that surely can and should contribute to food security for everyone. I showed me how well- or ill-informed many of us are about healthy eating in our own and in other local cultures too, by rich and poor. From understanding malnutrition to obesity, junk food to all kinds of supplements how much do we know or care?   This will need another MARFAM eco-family-friendly publication, maybe “FAMILIES AND FOOD FOR LIFE, after the latest new one being FAMILIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE.  TR 10 September 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

September 10.  SAVE.  (From BECOMING ECO-FRIENDLY FAMILIES)  This one word, “save” is interpreted nowadays in lots of different ways, sometimes useful but sometimes not.  Common of course is my computer which constantly asks me to “save” or “don’t’ save.”   Much of what I have saved over the last 30 years is clogging up the works, but then extra space is constantly created to store all that saved stuff. Is it in the cloud or under the sea?  Are you a hoarder, and should you be getting rid of, or giving away all the knick-knacks and dozens of useless items you have saved?  

A better use of the word is saving money.  It can and should be for a rainy day, for one’s old age, or for a special item one wishes to buy.  This does happen but maybe less than before and how many parents encourage children from a young age to save even a little?  We buy on credit rather than save, even kids do.  But credit is not unlimited and a day of reckoning is coming.  

Reckoning applies to ecology and creation too, which is certainly in need of saving from destruction. Biodiversity loss of plants and animals should be addressed through saving. Human population is a very complex issue as growth is unbalanced in our day with a growing number of elderly, affecting the peace and harmony of established cultures. Some important old and well-functioning cultures are in need of saving from being overwhelmed by outsiders or newcomers.  While migrants should have rights as they often leave their home country due to conflict and poor governance, but also for more selfish economic reasons, what is their impact on their new host countries which should also have rights. Conflict can come about in the host countries when they feel threatened by this influx and want to save what they have developed over time.  Where for families are the rights and where are the wrongs? The Beatitudes of Jesus are as countercultural now on issues of justice as they were in his day.

Reflect, share, act. Scripture: Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Woe to you that are rich for you have receive your consolation. Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. From Luke 6:20-26.  Pope Francis: We have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. LS 49. A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment.  To be serenely present to each reality, however small it may be, opens us to much greater horizons of understanding and personal fulfilment. Christian spirituality proposes a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little. LS 222.  Eco-tip and prayer:  . Reflect on and share on your understanding of the deeper meaning of saving and salvation. Pray the eucharistic acclamation  Save us, saviour of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.