Advocating Our Values

The U.S. Farm Bill is the primary agricultural and food policy tool of the federal government. This comprehensive omnibus bill is reviewed and re-authorized every five to six years by the U.S. Congress. The current Farm Bill, authorized in 2008, expired last September, but was extended for an additional year until Sept. 30, 2013.

See the current Action Alert from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Along with the bishops, Catholic Rural Life bases our advocacy efforts on the fact that agriculture touches all our lives. We can see that the choices in agriculture have fundamental ethical and human dimensions. The central focus of a moral examination is on the life and dignity of the human person.

Inexorably linked to that focus are key social principles:

• Respect for human dignity
• Family as foundation of society
• Commitment to the common good
• Solidarity with workers.
• Integrity of creation
• Option for the poor

Click to see a four-page summary of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' statement, For I was Hungry: Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers and Farmworkers (2003).

This statement presents Catholic social principles that the bishops used as a framework for measuring policies related to food and agriculture.