Everyone's concern

Dramatic changes are occurring in our countryside.

In the past, rural populations primarily consisted of farm families and people making a living in farm related businesses. With the decrease in the number of farms and a migration of non-farm families to rural areas, those with a direct relation to farming are in the minority in our diocese. Rural families are smaller than in the past and population increases in rural areas are not from fertility of rural families, but from people moving into the community.

With fewer farmers and a decreasing local emphasis on farm related business and activities, it is easy for many to be unaware of farm issues and concerns. Non-farmers can easily say, "Why should I be concerned about farm issues? I have plenty of food at affordable prices. Farmers should just sink or swim like any other business."

The truth is that rural issues, especially farm and environmental issues, are everyone's concern. We depend on farmers and the land in rural areas to provide a safe and sustainable food supply. We have a limited amount of land available for agriculture, recreation and nature. If all are not concerned about rural issues, our society and lifestyle will be dramatically weakened.

Catholic social teaching incorporates principles that apply to rural issues. Social teaching challenges us:

• To provide dignity in the work place, whether in a factory, an office, or in the barn and field.

• To work for social justice in the form of just compensation for labors, including farm owners and farm workers.

• To exercise good stewardship of God's creation.

• To encourage subsidiarity through ownership and decision making at the level closest to the people affected.

• To stand in solidarity with others whose way of life and livelihood is threatened.

Rural values, lifestyle and space are at the core of who we are as a people and a country. If rural areas are weakened, our society is weakened. Once land and lifestyles disappear, it is difficult to get them back. If you eat, if you drink water, if you enjoy nature, if you use rural areas for recreation, then rural issues affect you.

Our country increasingly takes for granted what we eat, who grew it, how it was grown, how its growth affects the environment and the local community, how it got to us and how it affects our bodies. The National Catholic Rural Life Conference has a series of information cards out that make the case that eating is a moral act. (See article on this page.) Have we ever thought about the ethics and morality of how our food is produced?

If rural issues are everyone's concern, then what can everyone do? Here are some suggestions:

• Learn about the issues. Read, attend presentations, ask any farmer.

• Ask your legislator to work for a fair pricing system for milk and other farm products so farmers can earn just compensation for their labors.

• Support labeling of food products to ensure real and safe ingredients and the ability of the consumer to know where they were produced.

• Affirm the efforts of farmers. Do not take them for granted.

• Support policies that provide for fair competition between small and large farm operations.

• Be concerned about land use. Attend hearings. Support good planning that takes into consideration the importance of maintaining quality farmland and protecting natural resources.

• Promote sound air, water and land environmental standards for rural areas.

There is great truth to the saying that we don't know what we've got until it's gone. It is time for all people, rural and urban, farmers and nonfarmers, business and environmentalists, to make concern for the rural lifestyle and landscape a priority. If each person takes responsibility for the common good by some form of action, rural life will be alive and well for years to come.

(Dcn. Grimm is diocesan Consultant for Social Concerns and Acting Rural Life Consultant.)