Crisis in Rural America
Rural America is on the verge of economic collapse. The current crisis in rural America is not just something farmers and ranchers are facing, but the whole of society. The reason for this is that this crisis has to do with the source of our life and the sustenance of our life in food. Beneath the current crisis lies a deeper reality - a crisis of our food production, consumption, and distribution systems. Rural America is being left behind during a time of general prosperity in our country. The dawn of a new millennium requires greater vision and energy to solving the rural life crisis.
Because all segments of society are affected by the farm/ranch crisis, the Church must be involved. The crisis is not just an economic issue but a moral and justice issue that should concern everyone. The Church as an educator in the faith, seeks to relate religion to the rural world and serves as a prophetic voice and convener of social justice. During the great Jubilee Year 2000, the Church asks all people to stand up for justice in rural America.
The rural crisis in Texas is compounded by the drought that the state has been experiencing during the past few years. Recently, the Texas Farm Bureau President Donald Patman told members of the National Drought Policy Commission that the combined effect of the 1996 and 1998 droughts caused more than $4 billion in direct losses to Texas farmers and ranchers with an impact on the state's economy close to $11 billion.
Today rural poverty wears a subtle face etched with the lines of personal struggle and the wrinkles of an economic system indifferent to the needs of the poor. Our culture in many ways is fundamentally alienated from our sources of food and fiber. Many people think milk comes from cartons, or meat comes from vacuum-packed packing, not realizing all the basic efforts that go into making these items available. We are in a culture where life more and more is made to serve the economy, and not the economy serving life. The capital sins of greed and pride are two of the major moral factors that underlie the present crisis in rural America. It should be remembered that people are more important than profit. In their pastoral letter on Catholic social teachings and the U.S. economy, the U.S. bishops remind us that"economic decisions have human consequences and moral content; they help or hurt people, strengthen or weaken family life, advance or diminish the quality of justice in our land."
Stewardship
We all depend upon the work of agriculture for food and fiber. Agriculture is not just a business, but is first and foremost stewardship. The farmer and rancher are stewards who received from their Divine Master the care of creation. Each of us stands not just on our own little piece of the world, but on common ground granted to us by a loving Creator. Caring for this common ground is not just a social but a religious act.
The Church?s responsibility for being involved in the agriculture/ranching crisis comes from Scripture where people are told to be responsible stewards of the earth and its goods. In Genesis 1:28, God tells Adam, his new creation, to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. This dominion is not meant to be domination or exploitation, but an exercise and care that are to be guided by natural and moral laws of God's dominion, the dominion of a God - Creator and Father - who loves everything that God has made. The critical issue of rural America deals with our life support system and requires us to express our faith in action as a community under God.
Low Commodity Prices and Globalization
One of the many problems facing farmers and ranchers is the fact that commodity prices are at an all-time low. Most of the commodities, be they cattle or hogs, sheep or goats, grain, wheat or cotton and many other farm products and many vegetables are relatively low. A fair and competitive marketplace is fundamental to providing economic opportunity to farmers and ranchers of all sizes, and every effort must be made by government and policymakers to uphold market conditions.
While commodity crop prices flirt with record lows that will not recover the cost of production, bankers have to be paid. Seed and fertilizers must be purchased. Equipment must be bought and repaired. The children of farm families need shoes and school clothes, and a chance at higher education. Farm and ranch families have countless bills that need to be paid. The economic state of many farm families is too focused on surviving today to plan for the future.
A basic issue for consideration in the present crisis in rural America is globalization. On the positive side, globalization promotes worldwide communication and the idea that we all live on the same planet and need to cooperate to survive and thrive. However, uncontrolled globalization has many negative consequences even on the local level. It ignores moral rules and spiritual values, can bring about unemployment, the reduction and deterioration of public services, the destruction of public services, thedestruction of the environment and natural resources. It fosters the idea of survival of the strongest. It also causes a growing distance between the rich and the poor, unfair competition which puts poor communities and even nations in a situation of ever increasing inferiority. We urgently need a full and complete examination of our national agricultural policy. Immediate federal assistance is needed. In the new century and millennium, long-term, meaningful agricultural policy is needed that addresses market reality.
Global economic justice focuses on improving equity for all people, respects the constraints of a finite and fragile environment, promotes diversity and creativity
and functions in a manner that is participatory.
We Care Through Prayer
The Church has the responsibility to call its members to be attentive to the plight of farmers and ranchers, to support a safe and clean environment for all, to advocate for humane treatment of animals, to seek respect for the dignity of farmworkers and immigrants who work in the fields and in food processing plants, and to support healthy local communities. This concern of the Church is expressed primarily in the slogan, "We care through prayer." The Church's role is to help us see the connection between the prayer of Christ Jesus, "Give us this day our daily bread," and the statement, "The food business is far and away the most important business in the world."
Christian churches and communities have always prayed, "Give us this day our daily bread." Now is a time to focus our prayer more on how God gives us "daily bread" according to God's plan for us and for the world. At present, less and less is our "daily bread" given without hundreds of negative consequences. The Church has the duty to insist that quality - justice, fairness, the integrity of creation, respect for the human person - be essential elements in the future of rural America. The Church fulfills her responsibilities to moral leadership by preaching, teaching, public statements, through the support of sound and just legislative policies, through the funding of pastoral remedies, and through the promotion of grassroot efforts on behalf of family-sized farms.
The Common Good And Cooperative Efforts
In this crisis the Church is called to be a voice crying out for justice for the poor. The Church's commitment to social and economic justice demands we struggle together with these complex issues. The Church is always to stand in solidarity with the least ones, the marginalized. The rightful role of the Church, the community of believers, is to enter into, and even shape the debate on issues from a moral point of view. And the Church is to speak out for the common good and to look after the interest of all of God's children, not just a few. To overcome these economic hardships and problems, the Church encourages a spirit of cooperation rather than competition. A spirit of cooperation can best be attained when the focus is on needs, not wants; when the priority is the common good, not narrow self-interest; when interdependence is sought, not absolute independence. The simple most important principle must be the recognition that the economy is for the service of people and society.
The Church encourages cooperative efforts to solve the rural crisis and the ecological, social, and economic challenges that face our whole planet. Through cooperation and collaboration, family farmers and ranchers can themselves make many of the needed changes in agriculture. I strongly encourage our priests and pastoral leaders to bring people together to discuss and pray about these issues. As we listen, we look for common interests and try to build on these. Ongoing dialogue is essential as is unified, consistent sustained advocacy for just policies and fairer, competitive markets, but also collective resourcefulness and a process of thinking in different terms.
The Church community needs to be on the frontline of the farm/ranch crisis, ministering to families and to the whole community. In a special way our rural parishes are focal points of social and emotional support as well as spirituality. There is a need for education in our churches, civic organizations, and through the media, to reflect seriously upon the state of agriculture in our nation and local area and upon the practical ways in which to promote a sustainable form of agriculture. Too many of the younger generation have experienced an alienation from the sources of their food and clothing.
Essential to all efforts to resolve the rural crisis is prayer. Prayer brings us in solidarity with one another - rural resident and urban resident. We must all come together as God's people to be renewed in faith, strengthened in hope and united in charity.