Farmer or Not?

I have been to a few conferences in my time. As a university professor I used to attend the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. That was usually interesting. Plenary sessions always had some big name scholar delivering an intellectually stimulating lecture. Break out sessions were organized around common interests: Hebrew Prophets, Pauline Literature, Synoptics, etc. Once (1985) I presented a paper at the national convention in Anaheim. It was for the Johannine Literature Section. The title was “Conflict and Christology in the EGO Sayings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse.” That was not even a weird title for those presentations. We stayed in really nice hotels and had a big banquet with rubber chicken and green beans for dinner.

For the past twenty-one years as a pastor the conferences have been frequent: The Church in the 21st Century Conference (2x), Southern Baptist Conventions, Annual Meetings of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and the list goes on. Each of these had their own share of nice hotels and banquets serving rubber chicken and green beans for dinner.

In January, I went to a different kind of conference. Melinda and I attended a convention for people operating small sustainable farms: The Southern Sustainable Agriculture Work Group Conference in Louisville (LOO uh vull), KY. About 1000 farmers showed up. We stayed in the Galt House Hotel, walked the streets of downtown Louisville in well below freezing temperatures, ate a Hot Brown at the Brown Hotel, and attended three solid days of breakout conferences followed by a closing plenary session on Saturday evening.

I was surprised by the diversity of the people attending: people in their 20s and those in their 70s; about an equal number of men and women; a good mix of both black and white farmers. Some had on overalls and some wore Dockers and sweaters. (This prompted me to teach Melinda to play “Farmer or Not?,” a version of “Preacher or Not?” that Rick Carpenter and I used to play while attending Baptist conventions.) One of the unusual participants was a 20-something young man from Amber, Oklahoma who is part time on staff of a Methodist church and who has his own farm operation that is part of an organic co-op in Oklahoma City. He was interested in church planting and reads Donald Miller.

Breakout sessions were often simply people telling their stories. They showed PowerPoint slide shows of their farms and talked about what they’d learned, what had worked and what had not. They talked about marketing and economics and about dealing with weeds and insects. I heard a university professor from Alabama talk about building devices to harvest rainwater and another take me back into college chemistry discussing soil analysis. All this, not just the chemistry, raised the question for me as to whether I’m smart enough to be a farmer. These people were impressive.

One evening participants from each state were encouraged to gather and the eight or nine of us from Texas became acquainted. We met a couple running an organic farming operation for inner city kids in Lubbock and a good ole boy who works for A&M’s county extension service (now known as Texas AgriLIFE Extension).

The meeting contained two big highlights for me. On Thursday evening we joined about 500 other early arrivals in a hotel ballroom to hear Wendell Berry (photo above). He has long been one of my favorite writers and has been on my list of people I’d like to meet someday. Mr. Berry is 74. He is a poet and a novelist. He is an essayist and philosopher. And he is a farmer in Kentucky. And a Christian. His philosophy is sometimes called agrarianism. He stood up and announced that since he’d already heard about everything he has to say, the thought he’d read a poem and then we’d just talk. So he read a beautiful poem about hope and then talked with the crowd for the next hour and a half. Then he sat out in the foyer and signed books for another hour. What generosity!

The second highlight was the closing banquet, the Taste of Kentucky Dinner. It was unlike any conference dinner I have ever had. No rubber chicken. No canned green beans. Everything was produced locally and was seasonal (and this was for 1000 people in January in Kentucky). Rather than a menu on the table, there was a list of the foods and the names of the growers who produced them. The meal was delicious, exceeding expectations. At the end of the meal the hotel chef and all who assisted him and those who served the dinner were brought out and applauded. Then those in the crowd who grew any of the food we ate were recognized and applauded. It was a great reminder that food does not really come from Krogers.

Melinda and I sat at a table with six people from Ohio. One couple raised grass-fed buffalo. The other two couples were German Baptist Brethren. The men wore plaid shirts and jeans and shaved only their moustache. The women wore long calico dresses and small bonnets. They smiled a lot. They had a lot of children. And they farmed organically.

The speaker for the evening was Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Virgnia. Joel is a guy about my age. He is an inventive farmer, a shrewd business man, and a politically informed thinker. He has published several books, has recently testified before Congress, and contributes regularly to Acres Magazine, to which I subscribe. He calls himself a “Christian-libertarian-lunatic farmer.” He is also an entertaining speaker. His topic was “Healing America One Plate at a Time.” He spoke like an evangelist and several suggested he run for President.

The week in Louisville impressed upon me the reality that we are all dependent on the soil. We are made from the dust of the ground and we will return to it (Genesis 2:7; 3:19 ). Meanwhile every ounce of nutrition we receive, every meal we enjoy, has its origins in the soil (and that includes seafood). We are literally earthy creatures. That truth is easy to forget in the middle of our concrete existence.

I was also reminded of the way that, despite our dependence on them, we have made rural people out to be “hicks.” These people were anything but hicks. They were bright, clever, educated, hardworking, committed, and principled people. They ought to be deeply respected for who they are and what they do.

Next year SSAWG meets in Chattanooga, TN. Never been there. Hope to go.