How one farmer’s dogged persistence and a resolute faith in God has successfully brought back forest to over 6 million hectares in West Africa and counts 240 million trees to […]
How would it look to live in close relationship to the land? Ronia and I are standing at the vegetable washing station on farm in Austria. Boxes full of freshly […]
It’s not a word I used much previously, but ‘harrowing’ sums up the experience of the last weeks and months. To my mind it has connotations of deep emotional scarring and agonizing pain; perhaps because a harrow is a farming implement with metal blades, dragged across a field to break up and smooth out the soil.
With most of the population now living in cities, Harvest festivals can seem archaic and quaint. At its worst Harvest can simply be a longing for a mythical rural idyll that never really existed, yet I believe we need to celebrate Harvest today more than ever. Here’s why.
When I read modern history at University in the 1980s, India’s ‘Green Revolution’ was held up as an example of progress: how technology can save and feed us all. Today things look rather different. There were heavy costs: social, economic, environmental. Can we feed the world without destroying communities, cultures and creation? What, if anything, does the Bible have to say about soil, farming and land-use? Rather a lot, it turns out!
Recently I was staying overnight in a rural cottage and decided to get up for an early walk. It was bitterly cold. The fields were nearly bare; however, the hedgerows and field margins were bursting with life. The richness of life at the margins got me thinking.
‘So, how’s the commune?’, the man asks. I answer, ‘It’s great, but it’s not a commune. It’s a community.’ He laughs. ‘Can’t fool me. Lots of people. Organic gardens. Shared living spaces. Sauna. You’re a commune.’ We’re not! I want to protest. And then I wonder, Why am I feeling so defensive?
The biblical story of Ruth and Naomi has always been a favourite of mine. There are many themes that emerge. There’s also the importance of a book centred on women, when women we marginalized… and of course it’s a classic love story. However, my focus for this blog is that Ruth is also about agriculture and economics.
I long for a transformed, honest food system in which there will be an end to economics characterized by ‘skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales’… Yet the supermarket mantra of ‘get big or get out’ certainly seems to be winning the war right now, and our mission here appears to be ‘impossible’. But is it?
