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Last week, I met with Tom Nelson and a dedicated group of priests, social workers, and farmers who care deeply about the troubling crises facing our rural communities.
I listened as they spoke movingly about the fact that, in the last 10 years, 50 percent of family farms in Wisconsin have disappeared, milk prices are untenable, and no economic future exists for young people who would like to remain in farming.
COVID and its impact on the economy and the food supply chain has only exacerbated these challenges. Depression and suicide are on the rise in troubling numbers.I learned that most farmers must work at least one other job just to make ends meet, and that many immigrants are serving on our farms as well.
I was grateful to hear of efforts being made to help rural folks receive assistance they need, whether that is financial and business counseling, psychological and emotional support, or better access to basic health care.
Help is out there, but sometimes it is hard to make the needed connections or even admit that help is needed. Rightfully so, farmers are independent, hard-working, and resourceful.
How difficult it must be to grapple with the truth that one’s livelihood and even a whole rural culture is dangerously disappearing.
We must face the difficult fact that our small towns and family farms are shrinking.
Young people are often forced to leave for bigger cities where job opportunities and economic survival are more viable.
The local economy is changing. Dairy consumption is down and milk prices have not kept pace with inflation.
I worked in a grocery store in 1981 when a gallon of 2% milk cost $1.50. Almost 40 years later, it is $2. No one can survive in such a situation.
Supporting our rural communities
Our diocese is largely comprised of rural communities.
Get outside of Madison and Janesville/Beloit and our local Church is small towns and farms. I love that!
My father grew up on farms in Iowa and Grant Counties and some of my fondest memories are visiting my grandparents’ farm near Highland when I was a child.
I have never met a farmer who was an atheist.
Working the beautiful land, watching the unfolding pattern of the seasons, reliant on Providence to send the right weather, living in the vast world of nature, farmers have a natural and deep spirituality.
Back in my grandparents’ era, a family could succeed on 150 acres with 30 cows and supplemental crops.
No more, which means a whole way of life is rapidly disappearing.
I know that my predecessors supported rural life with special Masses, field blessings, and pastoral visits. A Rural Life office in the diocesan curia focused on the needs of the time.
My hope is to reinstitute the practice of Rural Life Days in the diocese, spend more time in our smaller communities with a focus on listening to the needs and challenges of today, and to respond with practical help.
How do we offer spiritual support, access to existing services, and advocate for sustainable family farms? Chartering a diocesan chapter of the Catholic Rural Life Conference, which I hope to do, will make a statement about this fundamental pastoral priority.
We will formulate an advisory board to help prioritize needs, implement some programs, and organize events and activities in our rural communities.
Farming as a vocation
Farming is a vocation, not a job. A whole culture and way of life, not a paycheck.
Farmers grow an abundance of food, not only to feed us but indeed the entire planet, especially the malnourished and starving.
They cultivate the earth, endure bad weather and thin years, receive poor compensation for their efforts, but persist in their labor to put food on our tables and nourish the human community.
So many of Jesus’ parables and teachings utilize agrarian images — the mustard seed, the Good Shepherd, the Parable of the Sower, the weeds among the wheat, and the Parable of the Workers.
In many ways, the cycle of the seasons and the fertility of the earth symbolize the growth of the Kingdom of God.
The Genesis narration of God placing Adam in the Garden of Eden uses Temple language to illustrate the point that the world, in its divinely-created purpose and beauty, is the sacred place where we live, move, and have our being.
Baptized into the priesthood of Jesus Christ, we are cooperators of God’s grace, as we cultivate the earth and the human soul, bringing forth a rich harvest of salvation.
Farmers are witnesses to the call and mystery of our universal Christian vocation to sanctify the world for Christ.
Are we not all farmers, called to plant the seed of God’s Word in the rich soil of every person we encounter, so that a beautiful and varied garden of saints may spring up to the glory and praise of God?
Many thanks to those who work hard to grow, harvest, and transport our food, so that we can be nourished by the fruits of the earth.
In these difficult times, we pray for and stand with everyone who are out of work, lost their business and livelihood, and face the challenges of raising children and putting food on the table.
We are in a sad place of much suffering, isolation, and hopelessness.
Christ is our light in this darkness and our faith is the lamp to guide us to Him.
As I think of our farmers and rural communities, I call on the intercession of St. Isidore and his wife Maria, patrons of farmers and rural life, that God will give us grace, perseverance and hope to discover solutions to our problems and offer consolation and peace to everyone caught in fear, depression, and poverty.