When I was growing up, I spent many weeks during the summer on my grandmother’s farm. I have good memories of those days spent outside in the fresh air, experiencing farm life.
My father, who was a teacher, helped out on the farm during the summer. I was able to help in small ways, too, such as gathering eggs in the hen house and pulling weeks in the garden.
“Rural life is still the backbone of America,” said Jim Ennis, executive director of Catholic Rural Life (CRL) and president of International Catholic Rural Association (ICRA), as he addressed a group of about 50 people at St. Joseph Parish in Dodgeville on October 1.
DODGEVILLE — “Farmers are called to a unique vocation,” said Jim Ennis, executive director of Catholic Rural Life, the Catholic non-profit organization serving the rural Church in the United States for over 93 years.
Ennis discussed the role of farmers in an interview about a recent document called The Vocation of the Agricultural Leader: Integrating Faith with Agriculture and the Environment.
On May 15, we celebrated the feast of St. Isidore the Farmer, so this is an appropriate time to reflect on issues involving farmers and their impact on all of us.
Farmers provide much of the food we eat, so we should all be concerned about the state of agriculture.
Unfortunately, things do not look good for the farm industry in many parts of the United States. A Catholic News Service (CNS) backgrounder article by Mark Pattison reports that family farmers are facing the worst financial stretch since the 1980s.
