An Ireland-Inspired Hope for Small Farms in the US

While traveling in Ireland last year (2011), I made the following journal entry:

I am traveling and experiencing parts of Ireland in a group of 6 United Methodist and 3 Episcopal male clergy.   We arrived in Dublin from the United States on Saturday morning, 11 June 2011.  A bus transported us through the city southwest into the countryside for about 2 1/2 hours.  We stopped along the way for breakfast at a restaurant next to a horse farm.  The study proposal says that we will begin to focus on the question of which faith resources will empower us for the rest of our pilgrimage by involving ourselves directly in the ancient spiritual disciplines of Benedict, Celtic theology, and the sacred places of Ireland. 

Although on a spiritual journey, I saw immediately that small farms are still viable and carry the weight of agriculture in Ireland.  We followed a milk truck that made stops at farms to pick up the milk daily.  This is a stark contrast to the US where the infrastructure supporting small farms has been minimized or eliminated.  An agriculture map of Ireland shows the rich variety of agriculture across the country.  As I write on the 4th day of my travels through the region southwest of Dublin, primarily County Limerick, I am in a hotel outside Adar.  A colleague, Roger Thompson, and I walked from the restaurant back to our hotel 1 1/2 miles from town.  On the right of the road was a golf course on which the Irish Open has been held.  On our left was a pasture that had cattle, horses, sheep, and goats all grazing together.  

Yesterday, while visiting a holy burial site near Lough Gor, an ancient mystical lake, we stopped at The Great Stone Circle at Grange that is located inside a pasture.  Five calves were grazing and resting inside the Circle itself.  The spiritual practice of walking the circle and sensing the lives and stories of those buried there was powerful.  The walk required stepping around cow manure which added to the richness of the experience for me.  A serendipity occurred when the farmer whose land contains the Stone Circle showed up to greet us.  Our guide, Norin, had encountered him before when she had come to meditate or brought groups.  She tried to avoid him and urged our group to return to the bus when he approached us.  I stayed behind and engaged him in conversation about his dairy.  He was in his sixties.  At first he showed me a book that contained a photo taken in America of one of his sons when he had visited our continent.  It was obviously a way of connecting with the tourists who visited Stone Circle.  He then tried to interest me in the picture postcards he had to sell.  When I changed the subject to ask him about his herd of Fresian milk cows, he was eager to tell me about his plight, and that of other small farmers in Ireland.  He said one of his sons had taken interest in the farm so he had hopes of the farm continuing into the next generation.  He said he needed another farm worker to help them tend and milk his 40 cows that were coming into the barn for milking as we spoke.  I was tempted to take the job and ask the group to pick me up on their way back.  

After returning to the US, I had the following reflections on the intersection of spirituality and agriculture and on the future of the church and farming as a way of life:

At Glenstal Abbey, the worship with the monks grew in depth and richness with every service.  Although we were in a large nave with often only a handful of people spread through the building, the sense of God’s presence was intense.  The singing, praying, meditation and discipline of the monks stirred the heavens and awoke something inside me that I had not felt in year.  A sense of God’s peace even when all around is decaying and declining.  God can be trusted and will create a new heaven and a new earth; even a new church. 

Noirin Ni Rianan brought an earthy yet effervescent spirituality to us with your ancient songs and instruments and piercing voice.  The ancient ruins she led us to were not ruins but eternally thin places where she sensed, and helped us sense, the faith of believers and martyrs who had worshiped and died there. The context of all our travels, however, was the countryside consisting of small and medium size farms.  

Glenstal Abbey itself was on a 500 acre farm.  Father James had as his daily work apart from worship the management of a 100+ cow dairy.  Our host, Brother Coleman, arranged for me to visit the dairy with James and discuss farming methods and developments with him.  Between every holy site, we saw back to back to back small farms, both on the flatland and on the hillside. 

When I returned from Ireland, I immediately began to share stories from the trip in my sermons and newsletter articles at Latham. I also suffered from a deep sense of dissatisfaction with my comfortable suburban life in the states.  It was a restlessness of feeling more than ever that my life and ministry were to be lived out in a farm-based ministry.  I felt that I had little energy to get back into the grind of the daily work of ministry at Latham, but had no choice but to do it.  I did have energy to write my story.  I began to revise a manuscript I had begun to write in 2009 and added 30 more pages of new material.  I titled it The Land That Calls Me Home and am continuing to add to it as my ministry to support small farms and churches in rural communities continues.  The book is not finished because it develops a still unfolding plan that creates markets in urban and suburban areas for small farm products, which is a first step toward  returning to rural ministry and farming.   My ultimate desire is to assist rural churches to find their role in helping restore a farm based economy in their community through networking locally grown food in nearby population centers and urban-suburban churches.  I am in an ideal population center to develop such networks and am excited about working with Latham, my District Superintendent, and local agencies and individuals on increasing food security in our region.  The next stage of this plan is organizing a Farmers' Market at Latham to open in the spring of 2013.

Sandy and I have had many heart to heart conversations about eventually making this transition from suburban to rural ministry.  She works outside our home, and employment opportunities for her are limited once we leave Huntsville.  That means some economic constraints and lifestyle changes for us.  We have become dependent on our suburban life and the process of weaning ourselves from it is not easy.  

I had fruitful conversations in 2010 with Ken and Sarah Corson about partnering with SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology), located 10 miles from my farm, in strengthening rural economies and churches by through facilitating food production and market networking.  More recently, Sandy and I have come to know Chris and Jennifer Sunde and their daughter Caitlyn. Chris and Jennifer are in their late thirties.  They first came to Lineville, Alabama to work with SIFAT, where Chris taught sustainable agriculture and Jennifer cooked.  After a few years living in the area, they bought a small homestead consisting of a house and 3 acres near Lineville and set out to grow enough food for themselves and to sell locally for a modest income.  I would pass their house frequently when I drove from my farm to visit Sandy's mother.  My mother-in-law went into in the nursing home in Lineville early this year. She had a condition that made her unable to digest processed foods well.  We contracted with Jennifer to cook and deliver one home-grown and home-cooked meal a day to Sandy's mother and my father who was in the same nursing home.  The Sundes are deeply spiritual people who practice a lifestyle and the faith of simple people.  Their attire is similar to  Amish and Mennonites.  Their commitments to live close to, depend on, and care for the earth and the animals that help and feed them are not only similar to the Amish but to the small farmers I met and observed in Ireland.  

These connections, in Ireland, Huntsville, Lineville, and in rural farming communities across Alabama, are all part of a growing network that is giving vitality to small farms and the people who choose the lifestyle that goes with them.  The church has a key role to play in forming and sustaining this network to connect God's people to God's land.   In my next blog I will share  how Latham United Methodist Church is progressing toward opening a farmers' market to expand opportunities for small farmers in our area to sell their produce.

The Grow Your Own Food Network

The Grow Your Own Food Network  began when I called a long time Latham United Methodist Church member Cal Blevins in May of 2012 with the idea of pairing experienced gardeners with anyone who wanted to learn to garden and share gardening ideas.  He agreed to participate and started naming others in the church who garden.  I invited them and made announcements in the church that we were meeting.  Twenty-one attended during the next ten weeks to ask questions, share information, and give advice to first year gardeners about site selection, soil preparation, plant varieties, composting, mulching, caring for plants, combating insects and plant disease, and knowing when to harvest.  Participants included Cal Blevins, Tom Yates, Jim and Mary Jane Williams, Al and June Kid, Carolyn Peters, Faye Cook, Liz Hall Zeman, Susan Terry, William McRea, Candy Trowbridge, Betty Kilpatrick, Ben and Ginny Bentley, Cheryl and Cathy Cray, Charlie Warren, Diana Underwood, Carolyn Sorrell, and   Michael Sorrell.  Some who attended had no space at home to garden.  I contacted the pastor of nearby Hope Presbyterian Church, Christie Ashton, and asked permission to use the eight raised beds Hope built on their property several years ago.  The members who had planted the raised beds were no longer able to maintain them.  Only one of the raised beds was in use so Christie agreed that beginning gardeners in our network could use them.  Diana claimed two of the raised beds, pictured below.  She and her daughter Carolyn and son Michael planted the beds and harvested tomatoes, squash, beans, and peppers.  Betty planted tomatoes and thought her garden would dry up while she was in the hospital during the summer.  To her surprise, the plants thrived due in large measure to a subterranean hydration system that the church had installed beneath the raised beds.  She was still harvesting tomatoes until temperatures dropped below freezing in late October.  A small group of gardeners continued to gather at Latham for “Ask the Gardener” sessions into September.  We shared information about insect and fungus control and the best fertilizer to use to stimulate blossoms rather than more plant growth. 

Raised bed Garden at Hope Presbyterian kept by members of Latham's Grow Your Own Food NetworkShe and her daughter Carolyn and son Michael planted the beds and harvested tomatoes, squash, beans, and peppers.  Betty planted tomatoes and thought her garden would dry up while she was in the hospital.  To her surprise, the plants thrived due in large measure to a subterranean hydration system that the church had installed beneath the raised beds.  She was still harvesting tomatoes until temperatures dropped below freezing in late October.  A small group of gardeners continued to gather at Latham for “Ask the Gardener” sessions into September.  We shared information about insect and fungus control and the best fertilizer to use to stimulate blossoms rather than more plant growth.

In September of 2012, Latham held a Locally Grown Covered Dish Supper.  I invited Lee McBride to lead a gardening class afterwards to talk about eating locally grown food, fall gardening, and preparing for a spring garden.  The event expressed the church’s vision of connecting generations to grow relationships with God, others and creation.  The supper was an overwhelming success measured by the locally grown foods that we grew or purchased, prepared, and brought.  There was great attendance at the supper, and we enjoyed the fellowship and conversation about and around the food.  An additional result was the increased awareness of the availability and benefits of locally grown food.  One member brought venison to the supper, which was a huge hit, but besides the venison, we had no locally grown meat dishes.  Local butchers get their beef, pork, and chicken from meat processors sourced in the Midwest.  I raise beef.  When I sell steers at the Clay County Livestock yard, buyers transport them to feedlots and slaughterhouses in the West and Midwest from Texas to Iowa before meatpackers distribute them across the nation or export them back to us or to other nations.  No wonder conservative estimates of the distance our food travels before reaching our tables is 1,300 miles.  I visited Wright’s Dairy in Alexandria, Alabama, which is ninety miles away, to buy cheese, milk that was not homogenized, and eggs, all from cows and hens raised on Wright’s Dairy farm.  The cheese was a delicacy at the church supper and many children tasted whole milk for the first time, to the delight of many.  I have since learned that there is a closer source for locally grown cheese thirty-five miles away, the Cheese Factory in Ardmore, Tennessee.  The picture below shows the intergenerational crowd that gathered for and enjoyed the locally grown supper.

Latham has committed to host quarterly Locally Grown Covered Dish Suppers featuring seasonal foods.  One benefit is to raise awareness of the availability of locally grown food and the absence of those foods in our local grocery stores who stock their shelves with food grown and processed out of the region.  My goal in the suppers is to increase demand for locally grown food, which will lead to support of local farmers’ markets and influence local grocers to buy from local farmers. 

This is one of the ways that Latham seeks to fulfill our vision to connect generations to grow relationships with God, others, and creation.  It aligns with my personal vision to connect God's people to God's land  through God's church.  I love cultivating and making fertile ground for growth of all kinds.

Meeting Wendell Berry

In February I heard Wendell Berry speak at Samford University in Birmingham.   Two preacher friends and I showed up with tickets to the VIP reception for Mr. Berry so we could meet and talk with him before the lecture.  We intended to book a meeting of our clergy study group at his farm in Kentucky but we found no way to do that without being awkward.  So we awkwardly inquired if he ever invited groups like ours to visit at his farm.  He told us his house was rather small and our group of 9 Methodist preachers and Episcopal priests rather large, so we let the subject drop. Besides that, I stumbled trying to quote a short poem he wrote on work and prayer: "work, done in gratitude, kindly in well is prayer."  He  told me that was Catholic: laborare est orare, to work is to pray.  


I did not know beforehand the topic of Mr. Berry's lecture so I was pleasantly surprised when he read a not yet published short story titled "Sold."  I anticipated from the title itself that it would be a story about a farm foreclosure due to the get-big or get-out policy of the US Department of Agriculture.  I was partially correct.  There was no foreclosure because the farm he wrote about remained small and diversified.  It was about Beulah and Grover Gibbs, a farming couple who started out as tenant farmers until Beulah's parents died and left them the farm and house to tend and occupy.  Once Grover died, a neighbor named Coker Brand entered a sharecropping agreement with Beulah to cultivate the fields and tend the flocks and herds for her.  When her health failed, however, and she decided to sell the farm at auction and move closer to the doctors, that's when the tragedy occurred.  Coker Brand, was outbid by Mr. Big Rocks.  Coker knew what the place was worth as a farm.  Mr. Big Rocks bought the place for strip mining.  He immediately began to bulldoze everything, house and barn and fences, and erased all memory of the farm with its pastures, fields, and streams.  "Sold" meant violated, abused, valued not for its history of providing for families but for the natural resources that could be extracted from it unnaturally and permanently.

The Samford audience was spellbound.  Mr. Berry, my favorite living writer, does not own a computer or a cell phone.  He is a farmer who still plows with a horse.  He reads a lot but is not distracted by mounds of cyber information.  Instead, he pays close attention to the people around him and the details of their lives.  When he points out traits and expressions of ordinary people’s lives in his writing, it rings true and connects deeply in us.  He commands attention because people matter enough to command his.  

I asked the first question during the Q&A that followed his reading.  I said that many sources tell us that by the year 2050 there will be 9 billion people living on earth, 2 billion more than today.  At the current rate of production, we do not have arable land to grow enough food to feed the world over the next 38 years.  However, representatives of biotech and chemical agricultural corporations tell us not to worry; they have ways of radically increasing productivity on the land we already have through chemical and hybridization technologies.  My children and grandchildren do not like that answer. So I asked, "Mr. Berry, in light of this dilemma, what do you see as our preferred future?"  He first said he could not predict the future.  Then he replied, "If we can be scared enough about what may happen in 2050, a lot of people stand to make a lot of money and still not necessarily feed hungry people."  He also said that he was hesitant to answer the question because he never wants to say there are too many people.  "If we ever say there are too many poeple, and I've seen this in my lifetime, somone will name the excess."  And yet, he said death by starvation is a terrible thing, and what I described is paramount to a national emergency. We should take the problem seriously, but not panic.  If we are patient, we will not accept chemical and biotech solutions that have already created a 6,000 to 7,000 square mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico from agricultural runoff.  Patience should lead us to find some answers to the problem of feeding the world in our not too distant past. 

That not too distant past was a reference to the lifestyle of Grover and Beulah Gibbs and Coker Brand in Wendell Berry's short story.  It is a lifestyle of living in harmony with the land and the natural environment, of working the land in ways that give to it and take from it in mutual sustainability.  In 2010, global human migration from the country to the city reached a milestone.  Over 50 percent of the world population now lives in cities, defined as municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more.  That shift is synonymous with the abandonment of the lifestyle that Grover and Beulah Gibbs enjoyed--investing in the land and its animals, livestock, and crops that sustained them.  

Yesterday I conducted a funeral for a man in his late eighties who was an engineer for NASA, on Dr. Verner von Braun's Apollo team.  And yet, his family recalled how he grew enough vegetables in his back yard and on a small piece of land he had in the country to feed his family, and share with his neighbors, friends at work and in the church.  His family survived the Great Depression by growing their own food and sharing it.  He continued the practice after he moved to the city and as long as his health allowed it.  This man lived the answer to the dilemma we face of feeding ourselves, eating better food and getting exercise while we do it,  feeding 2 billion more people over the next 30 years, and sustaining the environment too.  We who live and work in the city have arable land that Cargill and Monsanto have not considered as available for growing food.  We have lawns or spaces for raised beds; or if in apartments, we have balconies for container gardening or window planters for tomatoes, peppers, or radishes.  We have spaces owned by the city that could become neighborhood gardens.  We can make soil in the city or the country available to grow food on some scale. When we do, we reclaim our heritage of self-sufficiency and thrift, and solve the problem of feeding the world beginning in our own back yards.