Re: [pf] where I am coming from

by Betsy Barnum

20 December 2000 04:02 UTC

prichter1@aol.com wrote:

> ready to really look at things like an agricultural movement.  Our church has
> grounds that would be amenable to a large community organic garden.  I have
> heard that someone proposed such a thing before but was shot down. I need to
> learn the particulars before I act.

Priscilla,

Around here, the issue of food and agriculture is one that churches have become
interested in. Two examples:

Community gardens. I know couple of churches -- one of them the Lutheran Church
that started the New Earth Partnership -- that have turned over some of their
property to community gardens tended by residents of the neighborhood. This has
been a great bridge between the church and residential area that surrounds it, 
and
now some residents have joined church members (many of whom do not live in the
immediate neighborhood) in the voluntary simplicity groups (2) that have formed 
at
the church. The church has also been active in the neighborhood association,
another way to build a bridge. (And very handy to have done so, when there was a
need to join forces to oppose a big biotech company that wanted to expand its
facility in a way that would impinge on the neighborhood and destroy some of its
green space. They kept it away.)

Direct-to-eater marketing. A group of 30 or so small farms in west central
Minnesota joined together to form the Whole Farm Co-op selling free-range,
grass-fed meat, eggs and dairy products, as well as some produce and other 
items,
directly to people as well as to food co-ops and restaurants. They have a wide
variety of customers now -- I've been buying from them for couple of years, as 
an
individual -- but they started out working with congregations and enlisting them
as drop-off sites and also as customers. I pick up my order at St. Boniface
Catholic Church, which also, in the summer, has a farmer's market in its parking
lot once or twice a week.

I don't know about other parts of the country, but agriculture is huge in
Minnesota. We have dozens of community-supported farms supplying residents of
Minneapolis and St. Paul, at least a dozen food co-ops, a growing number of
restaurants that make a point of using organic and locally produced food.
Community gardens are found throughout the city. Getting involved in these
endeavors is a good way for church to do something really positive for the Earth
and for the people who work the land in a sustainable and respectful way. It 
fits
so well with stewardship, no matter how you define it, and with care for 
creation
as well as personal responsibility and the impact that an institution can have
when it changes its choices in the marketplace.

I hope your congregation decides to do the community garden.

Betsy



--
Betsy Barnum
bbarnum@wavetech.net
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624

**************************************
The Constitution was designed to ensure that the majority of
citizens (without property) would not have a real voice in
political affairs and it is no coincidence that that is the case
today. And the Constitution was designed to ensure that real
political power in this country would always be held by the
handful of very large property owners and it is no coincidence
that that is the case today.

--Jerry Fresia, Toward An American Revolution