Catholics Examine Ag Issues in Fresno

color:#2F2D2D”>Jim Ennis, executive director of Catholic Rural Life, spent an evening with agricultural leaders in the Central Valley during a visit to the Fresno diocese earlier this month.  Bishop Armando Ochoa had invited Ennis to discuss integrating faith with agriculture and the environment.

color:#2F2D2D”>Ennis’ talk is the second this year in California’s Central Valley – he visited the Stockton diocese in March.  Ag issues tend not to get the same breath of statewide coverage that competing issues in urban settings receive – but the vocation of farmer could not be more essential for promoting the common good.  Farming is a privileged way of life with unique theological underpinnings. 

color:#2F2D2D”>Issues facing world food production – globalization, financing, agriculture knowledge, an overemphasis on technology and ecological impacts and balance – are just as critical as California’s housing, environmental, justice and other issues, pointed out Ennis.  In fact, ag issues may be more important because they are so existential.

color:#2F2D2D”>“These are difficult times for the world’s food systems,” according to the Vocation of the Agricultural Leader (which served as the basis of Ennis’ talk) “in which both natural and human ecology are being detrimentally affected by the same technologies and practices that yield incredible surpluses of food. Nevertheless, the Church maintains the hope that Christian agricultural leaders, inspired by a vocational understanding of their work and lives, will transform our modern food systems into forces for good, upholding the human dignity of every individual, preserving the integrity of the environment, and advancing the common good.”

color:#2F2D2D”> You can read more about Vocation of the Agricultural Leader – a joint publication of Catholic Rural Life and the International Catholic Rural Association – here.

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