Faith in the Public Arena: education

Thousands of farmers are forced to leave the land, no longer receiving an adequate income to compensate them for labor and cost of production. Some of our rural communities are dying.

These changes have moral and ethical implications that cannot be ignored. We urge Minnesotans to reflect on what is happening to our land, our farmers, our food, and our rural communities.

It is not crop failure alone that forces the closure of small farms, but faulty policy decisions favoring large agribusiness operations, concentrating both land and means of production into the hands of fewer and fewer while taking control out of the local community. This shift raises serious concerns for the stewardship of the land, the quality of our food, and the safety of our water and air in our state.

The church offers several principles to help us in this dialogue and to guide policy decisionmakers because, ultimately, the test of any agricultural policy is its concern for human life and dignity. The good of people is always first. The principles are:

- Human dignity demands just compensation of farmers and rural people for their labor and capital expenses.

-The preferential option for the poor urges that we judge policies concerning rural communities by how they affect the least among us. The "poor" today includes many people living in our rural communities because they are among the least powerful, and their way of life is marginalized, ignored or easily forgotten.

From these principles we call for policies which would:

- Ensure farmers a just income that adequately compensates them for their labor and cost of production.

- Promote sustainable agriculture practices.

- Restrict vertical integration practices which place ownership and control of production, processing and marketing operations outside of the local community.

- Protect and preserve agricultural land.

- Create opportunities for beginning farmers.

- Support health care access, education, jobs, housing, and other services in rural areas.

- Label genetically modified foods.

- Require strict enforcement of packers and stockyards act.

- Oppose further weakening of the Minnesota corporate Farm Act.

Farming is about production. It is also about people and a way of life.

As we have stated on many occasions, the bottom line in economic justice is people - not the dollar. The rights of those on the land and in farming communities demand just policy that respects the dignity of their work.

To show support for rural communities and call for change in our system of food production, the MCC and the Minnesota Council of Churches are jointly sponsoring an ecumenical prayer service at the Cathedral of St. Paul, followed by a 3:00 p.m. rally at the capitol on March 1. The prayer service begins at 2:00 p.m. and concludes at 2:45 p.m. Participants then will walk in solidarity to the capitol for a rally in support of rural communities.

A national rally is planned for March 20-21 in Washington, D.C.

Free bus transportation to Washington will be provided to any interested party by the Minnesota Farmers Union.

For more information on the national rally call the MCC at (651) 227-8777.