Feature
Up on the Farm
Where Young Christian Families Are Finding New Roots by Kathleen Curran Sweeney
In the rolling countryside of Virginia, along the curling road, there are old stone walls alternating with neat new wood fences. In the bright green grass dotted with buttercups, the cows munch passively: a peaceful scene in the gentle freshness of April. I come to the small sign for Whiffletree Farm and wind my car up the long narrow road to the large white house and farm buildings. Along a wall, I see a row of pails hanging neatly on hooks. Just inside, a glimpse of many stacked up egg cartons gives evidence of the daily work going on. I have come because I want to hear what life is like for the young family here, who have bravely started from scratch learning how to farm.
Is it possible for someone who has not grown up learning farming skills to become a successful farmer? What would motivate someone to try it? What values does a family farm have for the family, the local community, and the larger society? Are there implications for the ecology? Can family farming generate a spiritually grounded ecology and an awareness of work as participation in the goodness of created reality?
There is a new breed of young Christian farmers whose approach to small-scale farming takes seriously the need for healthy food, respect for the ecology, and the desirability of direct farm-to-market production. They also seek to live a non-fragmented family life and to keep at the center of their thinking a Christian understanding of God's creative order as it is given to us. Here are the stories of some of them.
The Straight Family
Jesse Straight and his wife Liz began their journey into farming after reading Wendell Berry's A World Lost, which presented a view of life centered in home, family, and community, in contrast to the modern experience of disconnected life, which separates these things. Many families today are uprooted, having moved away from their place of birth and upbringing, and they feel only loosely connected to a particular place and land. They often commute to work outside the home, send their children to a school (or schools) some distance away, and have to drive to church and to most other activities and events they like to participate in. Jesse and Liz were attracted by the idea that greater happiness and family flourishing could be found by bringing work, home, and school into one place.
Jesse graduated from the University of Virginia with no clear career goals, so he needed to decide what kind of work he wanted to do. He'd had a landscaping business while in school and also worked with Habitat for Humanity, and from these experiences he knew that he enjoyed hands-on work, outdoor physical labor, and the independence of running his own operation. He was also interested in the subject of healthy food and wondered if he could contribute something in this area. He and his wife had joined the organic CSA (community-supported agriculture) group in Charlottesville to buy healthy produce.
Jesse and Liz's strong Christian faith was also a factor. "I came to realize that I did not want a 'job.' I wanted a 'life,' one that all made sense and cohered and connected," Jesse remarked. When they were expecting their first child, Jesse decided he had to stop spinning wheels and get serious. So they moved back to Warrenton, Virginia, where Jesse had grown up, and in 2009 started their farm. With zero experience of farming, they turned to the farming guru Joel Salatin, whose books and experience at Polyface Farm in Staunton, Virginia, provided a model of how to be economically successful at farming. "Salatin's sustainable farming is exemplary for the food he produces, the benefit to the land, and the practical economy for the family," commented Jesse.
Following this guidance, he started on a small scale while gaining necessary farming skills, a production base, and a consumer market, keeping each aspect in balance. He worked part-time in a home renovation business while phasing into farming, but now works full-time on the farm, which has expanded to the point where he can supply a local market with produce and fully support his family—which now includes five young children. He also sponsors a four-month internship program that offers training in all aspects of successful family farming, and he has begun to partner with another young couple.
The Straights' goals in being small local farmers are both material and spiritual: they want to provide healthy food; build up a community–farm relationship; maintain a unity of work, home life, and education within the family; restore body-soul unity; maintain the distinction between the natural and the artificial; preserve the environment and ecological balance; and live with respect for creation, the natural rhythms of life, and the centrality of prayer.
Since healthy animals provide healthy food, the Straights' animals are allowed to graze naturally, moving from one spot to another, leaving manure behind to fertilize one area while they graze in another. This allows fresh grass to grow and results in more palatable grass overall on land that is neither over-grazed nor over-fertilized. It also prevents pathogens from developing, as happens when animals are confined in one place. The practice promotes cleanliness, prevents waste, and is less expensive.
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