wfn.org | Church group says farmers need negotiating power, fair prices

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Note #6117 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

12-July-2000
00254

Church group says farmers need negotiating power, fair prices

Church-based agriculture leaders meet in annual session

by the National Council of Churches News Service 
and Stephen Bartlett, PC(USA) agricultural missions staff

MINNEAPOLIS — "The rural crisis is again in the media and is again being
addressed by church groups," according to the Rev. Eva Jensen, director of
agricultural missions for the National Council of Churches (NCC), whose
board here this spring for its annual study
session, "Agriculture, Food Security and Globalization: the Impact on Rural
Sustainability."
	At the session, 70 participants and resource people explored alternatives
to the systems that are driving the loss of family farms all over the world.
	Although the farm crisis is in the news, "the way the issue is covered in
the media does not address the problem of the concentration of agriculture,"
Jensen said. She hopes for more careful analysis of the problem, "analysis
that takes into consideration the varied experiences of rural people and
communities and looks for positive alternatives and strategies."

	Effects of globalization pondered and addressed

	The goals of the session were to study the impact of globalization on local
production and access to food, small farmers, markets and livelihood; to
identify strategies toward sustainable local production and food security;
and to seek ways to bring U.S. churches and their members into the issue.
	"The industrialization of agriculture is not a solution but part of the
problem, together with trade policies," Jensen said. "Churches are extremely
concerned. They want to accompany people and communities in the grief and
pain that comes in the loss of a farm, sometimes even in the loss of life
through suicide."

	Farmers throughout the world share same problems

	Ana de Ita, from the Center of Studies for Rural Change in Mexico outlined
the agriculture system in Mexico and pointed to the tension in developing
countries between the needs of larger export farmers and small farmers.
	Farmers from Mexico are in dialogue with farmers in the United States,
according to de Ita. "They share the same problems, the same enemy —
multi-national corporations," she said.
	The challenge, de Ita continued, is "to inform peasant organizations of
public policy and its impact on the economy and their communities."
Demonstrations and resistance are important means of getting a point of view
into the public consciousness in Mexico. "We must support those efforts with
informed arguments," one of the tasks of her center, she said. "We try to
help Mexicans know that they are not alone in the struggle."

	U.S. agriculture policy akin to "science fiction"

	Steven Suppan, director of research for the Institute for Agricultural and
Trade Policy in Minneapolis, said he respects the work of church study
groups, social statements and advocacy efforts around agriculture policies.
But in spite of these activities, he added, members of U.S. congregations —
such as his own Lutheran church — reflect Americans' general lack of
understanding of the implications of agriculture policy.
	"The economy of the Bible is fundamentally a rural economy," Suppan said,
pointing to a Pauline metaphor: "The husbandman that laboreth must be the
first partaker of the fruits." This passage is engraved in the portico over
the central entrance to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.
	According to Suppan, 20 percent of the U.S. population is somehow involved
"in the work of husbandry, whether you interpret ‘husbandman' to mean
‘farmer,' ‘rancher,' ‘farm worker,' ‘chicken de-boner' or any of the myriad
workers" involved in food systems. "The question is, who is receiving the
first fruits of that work?" he said.
	"Farmers need negotiating power," Suppan said. "Taxpayers are underwriting
a policy that is designed to alienate urban constituents from rural
communities and farmers. The need for subsidies is presented by the
government and agribusiness as a bail-out for farmers, at same time they'd
have you believe U.S. food is cheaper than anywhere in the world. And that
policy looks to farmers like a subsidy to agribusiness," Suppan said. A
study in Wisconsin indicated that 56 percent of the state's dairy farmers
are eligible for food stamps, he said.
	Five to six percent of farm owners possess 80% of American farm land,
Suppan said. Resources for smaller farmers are not sufficient:
	"U.S. food policy options sound like science fiction," Suppan said.
"Developing countries are encouraged to play the futures market, the kind of
risky speculation normally advised for only the most secure investors.
	"One thing to think about is building alliances among organizations, unions
and communities of faith to recuperate democracy from a condition in which
you have to pay to play," Suppan said.

	Alternative models shared and visited

	International participants shared some alternative models of farming and
marketing, plus organizing methods, that help support small farmers.
	Genevieve McDaniel-Vickers of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Montego Bay,
Jamaica, said, "We encourage people to eat local foods, to buy local
products, to grow their own produce and share with neighbors, to plant fruit
trees," she said. "Providing moral support for farmers is important. We
assist with networking and lobby for the ownership of land by farmers and
fair prices for export products," she said.
	Hewa Pathiranage Piyadasa Subasinghe of the Christian Workers Fellowship in
Sri Lanka stressed the value of marketing cooperatives to achieve fair
prices for small farmers.
	Ben Burkett, a vegetable farmer and member of the Mississippi Association
of Cooperatives, Jackson, Miss., also encouraged organizing co-ops. Burkett
cited the lack of relationship "between rural farmers, consumers and the
five supermarket companies that control purchasing and even dictate the
breed we have to grow." The association has turned to developing relations
in New Orleans where niche marketing is paying off.
	"World powers dictate the agricultural policy for Ghana," said Mozart
Adevu, who works with Ho Farms Project, related to the Evangelical
Presbyterian Church in Ghana. The population is 70 percent rural and in need
of home-grown food, "yet our government promotes large scale production for
export.
	"Since 1972, dangerous chemicals have been used for deforestation in order
to grow cereal crops for which there is now no market," Adevu said. "Our
task now is to help people learn integrated agriculture principles. We are
training 19 farmers at a field school to change their growing practices and
improve their product."
	Participants got a look at sustainable alternatives to large commodity
farming when they visited two farms west of the Twin Cities: Riverbend Farm
at Delano, Minn., a certified organic farm operated by Greg and Mary
Reynolds, who grow about 50 different vegetables and herbs and sell them to
co-ops and restaurants as well as to a subscription group; and Sweet Meadow
Farm at Howard Lake, Mich., a grass-based grazing dairy operation owned by
Gary Schmieg.
	In urban areas like the Twin Cities, non-profit agencies dedicated to
making food available to the poor have gone right to the source, making
small, specialty farming possible, providing markets, organizing
cooperatives and teaching the essentials of farming.
	Melissa MacKimm of the Minnesota Food Association, described the
organization's work as a bridge providing access to food for low-income
people. "The low-income population has few food choices in the city," she
said, "and small farmers need markets."
	Perdita Butler explained the work of the Youth Farm and Market Project,
which teaches gardening skills to inner city teens in Minneapolis and St.
Paul. The project is five years old and has achieved important partnerships,
such as the city park boards that make possible some of the garden
locations, and a successful restaurant that serves organic foods. The young
people also learn the value of cooperatives and staff their own market
stand, selling produce grown in the organization's urban garden plots.

	Theological reflections emphasize "common good"

	Throughout the conference, policies and models were placed in biblical and
theological context to encourage and inspire church-based organizers to
bring this kind of reflection to their churches.
	Brother David Andrews of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des
Moines, Iowa, for instance, traced the history of public order of Egypt, the
social innovation of Moses, the covenant of David and the challenges of the
prophets in the Old Testament. The stories of Israel's heritage as a rural
people were gathered together in what is called the Jubilee tradition, he
said.
	"The Jubilee tradition expresses the notion of the Sabbath in the
ecological, social, political, and religious organization of Israelite
society. The Jubilee tradition was the extension of the Sabbath — the rest
of the seventh day in praise of God — to the total life of the Hebrew
community," Andrews said. He called the Jubilee tradition "an ideal form for
an agrarian people" and "a model for all people's renewal in striving to
live with care for creation and care for community."
	The National Catholic Rural Life Conference employs a series of principles
to flesh out the Jubilee tradition in a framework for rural life. One
principle is "the common good," Andrews explained. "The common good
encourages individuals and communities to act on behalf of the good of all.
Individual goods include health, food, shelter, clothing, land, water, air.
Where the common good is ignored, social, economic, personal, and ecological
disharmonies grow," he said.

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