c8 ENVIRONMENT Week of November 28, 2004 THE CATHOLIC REGISTER
Canadians disconnected from the land that feeds us
Forum discusses ‘values at stake’ in agricultural industry
BY SIMON APPOLLONI
Catholic Register Special
Worried about the unsustainability of Canada’s agricultural systems and the seemingly growing crisis in food production such as mad cow disease, roughly 70 people of different faiths gathered recently in Guelph to hear from farmers, scientists and theologians about the moral and spiritual implications of our growing detachment from the food we consume and the land that produces it.
Entitled “Land, Food and Faith: The Values at Stake in Canada’s Agricultural Industry,” the gathering was sponsored by the Canadian Forum on Religion and Ecology (CFORE) and boasted an inspiring array of panelists, including well-known eco-feminist, theologian and author Sallie McFague. The message heard at the forum was that Canadians are experiencing the fallout of no longer having a relationship with the land, food and farmers. As people of faith, this crisis should be of great concern to us, said conference organizers.
Today farms are larger, highly dependent on chemicals and fossil fuels, more industrial and located farther away from the urban populations they feed. Our food travels vast geographic distances between where it is grown and where it is eventually consumed, burning up much fossil fuels for transportation.
“How can we have a relation- ship with the local farmer when we are eating rice from Guyana?” asked one of the panelists, Fr. Jim Profit, S.J., director of the Ignatius Jesuit Centre of Guelph.
“We are told that we need lettuce in January to be healthy,” but, Profit added, it is not necessary and is certainly detrimental to our environment.
“It is no accident that we are where we are,” he added, referring to Canada’s agricultural system. Profit related how Agriculture Canada had set agricultural strategy in 1969 that paved the way for change from relatively small-scale, sustainable, organic agriculture to large-scale chemical farming. Part of this scheme involved reducing the number of farmers and, sadly, it was successful, as today there are 75 per cent fewer farmers than in the 1960s.
The result is that today we are left with a global food industry that sees food as another commodity to consume, concluded Profit.
Organic farming, on the other hand, is a viable alternative, con- tended panelist Ted Zettel, president of the Organic Meadow Inc.
Organic farming strives for a connection between the farmer and the consumer and for a connection between the farmer and the land.
A farmer and a Catholic, Zettel spoke about how his faith led him to become an organic farmer. He sees the virtues of humility, patience and selflessness as being wholly compatible with the family model of organic farming.
The predominant industrial large-scale farming model “promotes the vices of control and selfishness all in the name of profit, efficiency and the maximization of production,” Zettel argued.
Organic, sustainable agriculture may be gaining momentum, according to recent statistics. Even food industry giants such as Kellogg’s, Heinz and General Mills are now marketing organic food brands.
However, advocates are warned that the benefits of this trend will diminish if, for example, organic Hawaiian papayas, refrigerated and shipped to Toronto in midwinter, are put on the market.
For Gemma Neal, a participant at the gathering and parishioner at Christ the King parish in Toronto, the distancing of food from where it is grown and where it is eventually consumed is great concern.
Neal would like to see moo Christians become concerned about the present and real danger of urban sprawl that is paving over prime farmland in the Greater Toronto Area.
“I feel we are missing an opportunity to be good Christians to fully practise our faith,” sat Neal. “We seem all caught up in our industrial economy and cannot hear God’s word.”
McFague suggested a framework in which to turn thing around. Echoing the sentiment in her book The Body of Go McFague spoke of the earth a our meeting place with God. “The land, therefore is sacred.”
And as God’s co-workers, humans should focus on the land said McFague.
McFague concluded, “Focusing on Christ as the radical incarnation (beyond His brief 30 years in human form), allows us to realize the presence of God as always with us.”
In this way, living in harmony with others and the land becomes paramount and food is comes a symbol of “justice an sustainability.”
Certainly, a spiritual healing is needed, ended Profit, suggesting to those gathered that we begin by “reflecting upon our own connectedness to the land.” And for Catholics, Profit said, that can begin through our liturgical celebrations.
(Appolloni is a Contributing Editor to The Catholic Register and a member of the Elliot Allen Institute for Theology and Ecology in Toronto.)
The Canadian Forum on Religion and Ecology is a not-for-profit research, education and advocacy organization founded in 2004 by five Canadian academics. To learn more please contact Dr James Miller, co-chair of the steering committee at 613 533 6000 x 74320 or visit the CFORE website at http://www.cfore.ca