A Crisis of Faith and Farming in Rural America
crops? What are scientifically determined effects of chemical sprayed crops on humans?”
It is unfortunate that the crisis of faith and farming is measured by the pressures and tensions found in farming families. The tragedy of suicide, which, I previously mentioned, often results in long, lonely hours spent in isolation, when problems become all-consuming and soul destroying. Rural church leaders contend that even beyond these common behavioral patterns, there is the pain of family breakdown as the long hours and total devotion to financial survival leaves no time for spouse and family. Another aspect, difficult to quantify, is the depth of disappointment in a young life brought up on a farm and with a love of the countryside but forced to see the family farm become part of a large farming company. The sense of loss and personal failure when a farm that has been passed from father to son for several generations is no longer viable is devastating. Although not a farmer, my own feeling is that the crisis cannot just be considered in human terms! If the good farmer has no money, he cannot feed his stock during the winter months, or he cannot afford to call out the vet, and so a sick animal is becomes vulnerable to the whims of life and death. I’ve grown up in similar situations of vulnerability and financial distress that has tested my family’s faith in God. Today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there is a farm crisis because the family farm is not sustainable. There is also a “linked” crisis in the church because leadership in the small congregation is not sustainable. Rural ministry is, in a sense, the opening of one’s eyes to the different possibilities God offers under these horrendous circumstances. My research has revealed that are some distinctive rural situations that are different to urban situations. Policies that withdraw education, health, public transport, financial resources, and much-needed facilities, because they cost too much to run in smaller communities, impact rural populations. Needless to say, this can have a disastrous impact on the structure of small rural communities, which are already limited to accessible resources. The challenge for the rural church is to meet the needs of people in the midst of scarce resources.
Upon careful reflection, it is difficult to comprehend how a nation with the capacity to feed the entire world population is faltering in doing so. The US has for the past two centuries balanced the bounty of its arable land with the competitive rigors of a free-market economy. We know that government subsidies, aimed at surplus reduction and price control, have enabled farmers across the country to cultivate crops that are profitable to grower, distributor; and consumer alike. Now tilling the earth in a politically unstable climate, farmers are faced with possible cuts in subsidies as they are called on to satisfy the demands of national and international markets with diminishing federal regulation. The central role [next page]