Pope John Paul II on Sunday added his voice to the debate over food safety and madcow disease, speaking to agriculturalists of the need to respect nature.
In a veiled attack on farmers over madcow disease -- or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) -- the pope insisted that man had to work in harmony with nature.
The spread of the disease has been blamed on a cost-cutting practice whereby ground up animal remains were fed to other cattle as a cheap source of protein.
"If the world of technical refinement does not reconcile itself with the language of nature in a sound harmony, human life will run ever greater risks of seeing the kind of worrying symptoms we see today," the pope said, addressing a crowd of thousands of agriculturalists gathered here.
The pontiff urged farmers to "act in such a way as to resist the temptation of pursuing productivity and profit at the expense of respecting nature."
"God gave the earth to mankind so that he might cultivate and take care of it," the pope said.
"When this principle is forgotten, and we abuse rather than take care of nature, sooner or later, nature will rebel," he said.
Over the past weeks, France has been gripped by a fears of an epidemic of mad cow disease after it was revealed that meat from an infected herd was sold in supermarkets.
BSE has been linked to the fatal human condition known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease which has already claimed 80 lives in Britain -- VATICAN CITY (AFP)
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