Creating Sustainable Systems of Food Production and Consumption

Food is ubiquitous and necessary to human survival. It becomes a moral issue when not everyone has enough food (or healthy food) and when our system of food production damages the environment by using dangerous chemicals or by emitting tons of green-house gas emissions when transporting food to its final destination.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. 1Corinthians 6:19-20 (NRSV, The Harper Collins Study Bible, 1989)

Food is also a spiritual issue, one that Christians need to pay attention to. Food is not only necessary for physical survival; it is necessary for spiritual survival and for building community.

God said, “See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. Genesis 1:29 (NRSV, The Harper Collins Study Bible, 1989)

Food also grounds us in God’s Creation. When we produce some of our own food, we experience the mystery of God’s creation—the miracle of putting a seed in the ground and watching it grow, produce and then die and reproduce. We also care for the earth by using practices that build up the soil restoring it to its proper balance and protect the air from harmful pollutants.

What is the easiest way to contribute to food sustainability? Start a community garden, grow some of your own food, shop at a local farmers’ market, or purchase foods at a grocery store that are grown locally.

A few years back, I organized community members to create a community garden. This garden was to be a teaching garden and was also connected to Our Community Kitchen, a program designed to create community around sharing a meal. Our Community Kitchen serves breakfast twice a week to anyone who is interested in participating. It is unique in that people of various economic levels chose to attend, building relationships across socio-economic lines that would not normally be crossed.

The garden was intended to teach about food sustainability but also to supply food for Our Community Kitchen. It became so much more when I insisted that a wide spectrum of the community be involved in creating the garden. The garden occupies a piece of land adjacent to and owned by the church I attend. I strongly urged my church community to offer this land for the garden, which they did and which invested them in the process. The church built several planter boxes and community members donated materials and build more.

A Girl Scout Troop built a wheelchair accessible planter box. A group of developmentally challenged young adults (including one in a wheelchair) planted many of the garden boxes and came back later to harvest. Volunteers watered and harvested the vegetables. Our Community Kitchen cooked the food and served it at their breakfasts. A local Head Start Program (preschool) ate many of the vegetables while learning about their nutritional value and ways to use them at home.

Countless people walked by the garden and were intrigued by what we were doing. Many stopped to help, some stopped to eat, some stopped to find out how they could build a garden.

Although I am no longer involved, the garden is sill thriving and the community of people that supports it is thriving as well. We didn’t solve the problem of food sustainability, but I like to think that we created a small dent in a larger community problem and in the process, we created a network of people that are now concerned about where their food comes from and know how to grow a bit of their own food.