11/30/05: Movement To Help Farmers Began In Church, And Will Grow With You
Movement To Help Farmers Began In Church, And Will Grow With You
The Capital Times :: EDITORIAL :: 9A
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
TONY ENDS
A single phone call, from a single farmer, to a single church in Madison began a movement.
The journey to that starting point in November 2003 wasn't nearly so easy. And what's spreading this winter across Wisconsin and Iowa and into Illinois still has far to go to win acceptance -- your acceptance.
I have confidence the initiative will keep growing, though. I was the farmer.
I spent years working alongside other farmers, wanting for them what I'm sure you want for yourself and your neighbors:
Fair wages for honest, hard work.
Safe, secure and thriving communities.
A food system that sustains itself, cares for vital resources and respects life.
Conditions that nourish the human spirit and feed dignity, faith and hope.
Before I began farming, I didn't see this happening for farming people.
I worked with rural communities for a state senator. I wrote about farming, researched and reported on farm issues and revived a daily paper's farm section. I assisted agronomists, soil scientists and educators in a sustainable agriculture institute. I helped obtain more than $1 million for their programs.
Mostly what I learned from these experiences, however, was how not to help farmers. Seldom did my efforts save a single farm.
I finally realized if I was to save a farm, it would be my own family's fledgling vegetable crop and small livestock business. I didn't know then how close this understanding put me to that phone call and the answer.
We can't help someone, really help someone, if we do not understand completely the challenges, obstacles and opportunities. We can't sell an idea unless we've succeeded at it. To overcome the struggle, we must first embrace it.
When you're just starting out with a family to feed, and every tool, machine, implement, animal, acre and skill you need seems financially as distant as the moon, you start to understand. When you step behind a market table with all that your family has worked so hard to grow and make, and the words stick in your mouth and you don't know what to say, or it's too hot, or too cold, and no one shows up but disappointed vendors, you learn essentials of success.
When you share joy, with your wife and children, at the birth of lambs and baby goats; satisfaction from a hundred varieties of seed rising up in acres of life you've helped tend; inspiration from making something broken work, something struggling survive, something costly yield returns, something cheap and plentiful gain value, then the right paths unfold.
For me, it all fostered a passion for farming. Passion is what sells products and nurtures solutions. Passion is what persuades. Passion is what brings about justice, earth stewardship and community.
Which brings us back to that starting point that became a movement: Midvale Community Lutheran Church, at the corner of Tokay and Midvale. Never have farmers needed more than now what's taking place there, starting at noon Dec. 7, for the third year in a row. Never have you needed this more.
Farm expenses, which have increased $7 billion or more nationwide each year for three years, are projected to rise $8.9 billion this year, totaling $218.7 billion. A crushing load of farm business debt -- $213 billion -- has climbed higher than it was just before the 1980s farm crisis.
Higher farm expenses -- more than 60 percent related to rising energy-based costs and interest -- will push farm-operator households' net cash income down 15 percent. Only by working off-farm jobs will farmers show overall income increases this year.
And with the energy humans expend to produce food compared to the energy from other sources now estimated to be a ratio of 1 to 90 -- with almost all this other energy coming from fossil fuels and nonrenewable energy -- just how secure is food?
* Thus, the purpose of this movement, starting in a single church with one denomination and now expected to spread to 35 churches and six denominations in the tri-state this winter.
It's simple in its organization, enjoyable in format, empowering in outcomes.
It's a winter farmers' market, a benefit sale for a farm crisis fund. It brings consumers and family farmers together in direct relationship. It restores local food control, supports stewardship, rewards ecological practices, raises farmers' incomes. It provides a safety net for food producers in great need. It helps people of faith walk the talk in their own parish hall.
It's called the Harvest of Hope Partnership. The public's welcome. With many steps now, we can help farmers and ourselves.
\ HARVEST OF HOPE PARTNERSHIP
What: A series of winter farmers' markets, held at churches, to benefit area farm families and contribute to a farm crisis fund.
Where: The first one this season will be at Midvale Community Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall, 4320 Tokay Blvd.
When: Noon-5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7
More information: For a complete calendar of Harvest of Hope Partnership winter farmers' market benefit sales, e-mail cclp@tds.net or call 608-831-9319.
\ Tony Ends farms with his wife Dela and children in Brodhead. He also directs Churches' Center for Land and People, a nonprofit ecumenical organization advocating for farmers in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois that is headquartered at St. Benedict Center in Middleton.