A Crisis of Faith and Farming in Rural America
despair over both pastors and parishioners. "When farmers are forced off the land, they lose a great deal," says Judith Bortner Heffernan, executive director of the Heartland Network for Town and Rural Ministries, an extension of the United Methodist Church. "They lose their heritage, they lose their place in the community, they lose their connection with God because they feel farming is what they are called to do." The desperation in rural America has presented churches with a range of issues many say they are unprepared to address. Financial worries put additional stresses on overworked families and threaten the local ministries of many community-based churches. Suicide rates are up, depression is deepening and, perhaps most threatening, some say, people don't see God on the family farm! Being a farmer, they conclude, has become nothing short of a leap of faith. Even more grim, to illustrate, making a living at farming the land has become a precarious business as shown by volumes of sobering statistics I gathered from the United States Department of Agriculture.
Minnesota is expected to lose 10,000 farmers this year.
In Wisconsin, five dairy farmers quit every day.
In Kansas, farmers took home only $23,016 in 1998, compared to $26,995 in 1997.
Farm debt also rose to $6.9 billion in 1998.
A corn grower in 1975 earned $562 per acre. Today, that farmer earns just $290.
My research suggests that in instances like this both farmers and church officials believe the blame lies with agribusiness giants who are pushing family farms out of business. Farmers contend the large corporations are dictating production and squeezing competition, leaving farmers few places to sell their crops. When Naylor quit milking cows in 1993, for example, he could get $13 for 100 pounds of milk. He’s quick to point out in Life in Rural America that now he'd be lucky to get $9.50. Judith Heffernan declares that what is happening now is that farmers are seeing the destruction of most of what has fed this country for years, namely the family farm system in the United States. Rural church leaders believe, as we probably can surmise, that families and churches ultimately begin to feel the financial squeeze. Families forced off their farms leave the community and take with them offerings, time and talent. Local businesses suffer and, bit by bit, the tight-knit fabric of community begins to fray. Although few churches have had to close because of the crisis, rural pastors generally contend that their resources are stretched, especially affecting people who come looking to the churches for food pantries, counseling and general assistance. David Andrews, executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des Moines, Iowa addressed this significant issue: “We already know that our counseling services are maxed out. We have lists and lists and lists of people who need our help.”
It also appears that [next page]