Particularly at holiday times, we are reminded that preparing and serving food is a significant element of religious ritual and celebration. It is no accident that we observe God's life-giving gifts in traditions which include gathering around the table. The readings and discussion in Meetings Two and Five focus on the religious and spiritual nature of food. An Act Connecting Us to Community and Agriculture Eating Sunday connects us to community, to our human and non-human neighbors, and to the earth itself. Anything that so connects us to the earth has significant environmental impacts, and agriculture is no exception.
Agriculture refers to the culture, to the community that develops from the cultivation of land.
Over the last fifty years that culture has changed dramatically. Family and community stewardship have been replaced by corporate management. In the process, crop rotation, organic fertilizers and soil husbandry have been replaced by monoculture, petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, and soil erosion and depletion. Between 1910 and 1920, the United States had 32 million farmers living on farms, about a third of the population. But to think of ourselves as participants in agriculture, to realize that our food choices can influence not only our own health, but the health of the land and rural communities, is to move toward taking responsibility for that participation.