Land Ministry in the San Joaquin Valley of California,
Presbyterians* (*and Other People of Faith) for Small Farms,
Lindsay, California

"Search for a congenial or at least tolerable relation between man and land has gone on throughout recorded time, for that relation largely shapes the relationship of man to man."     -- Paul S. Taylor, 1979  

"Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord."  -- Jeremiah 22:29

The San Joaquin Valley of California is the most productive agricultural region in the world, the modern-day Tigris-Euphrates.  It also contains the top four counties in the nation in measures of poverty and hunger.  The correlation between agricultural productivity and poverty has caused many to assume that agriculture causes poverty, without understanding the process or the structures involved. From Carey McWilliams' Factories in the Field onward, the industrialized character of California agriculture has drawn fire from social justice critics, but without hindering or reversing the trend toward it.

What few realize, however, is that the San Joaquin Valley contains two kinds of agriculture:   huge expanses of land held in large ownerships, largely absentee; and subregions with bands and pockets of smaller-scale, owner- operated farms.  In the late 1930's and early '40's, Paul S. Taylor, professor of economics at UC Berkeley and husband of documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, supervised a two-community case study of the effects of farm size and tenure on rural community development in the San Joaquin Valley.  What that study showed was that the  community which developed in the resident, small-farm region had significantly better social conditions, far more democratic political life, richer cultural qualities, and twice the level of economic development as did the community in the absentee, large-farm region.   What few also realize is that this information, this understanding of the critical developmental role of small, owner-operated farms, has been suppressed, not only in the San Joaquin Valley but in the nation at large.  

If land is the source of all wealth, as Henry George claimed, then land distribution and land tenure may also be seen as the source of all poverty and hunger (i.e., the lack of land.)  We can see this clearly in foreign countries when indigenous peasant cultures become dispossessed urban slum dwellers, but we somehow think ourselves in this country as removed from the problem by our state of development.  What this ministry seeks to accomplish is to bring home the meaning of land in our own cultural economy, and to work for changes in our agricultural structure that would reduce the impoverishing effects.  It seeks to do so by working in the place where the agribusiness mentality has its strongest toe-hold as well as its roots, and where the differences between the large farms and the small are most visible. 

The ways of working, however, are ministerial more than political.  We seek to build community between small-scale farmers, farm workers and rural townspeople through small projects that help people realize their true interdependence.  We work to build understanding of the theological implications of land tenure and the importance for Christians and other people of faith to take active interest in the future of small farms, not only for the sake of neighbor but also for the sake of covenant. In concrete terms, at the present time I am working locally with a group of small-scale citrus and olive growers trying to find ways to stay in business, as well as working to get the city government of our floundering small town to recognize the possible developmental opportunities of a revived small-farm economy.  I give presentations on the farm size/community development relationship to church groups, community organizations, and college classes, and write articles for publication.  I use music and poetry as well as facts and figures, and bring photographic images into the discussion to bring home the importance of all the people involved, because I believe everything is at stake.  The good news is that when people really hear this message, they realize that they knew all along that it's true, and are glad to be reminded.  

The main blockage to our understanding about farm size and land tenure is not a lack of caring.  The real blockage is a myth - about scarcity and the economies of scale required to overcome it - that sits between our hearts and our minds, diverting the flow of caring and acting, of deciding what's right and how to work to rectify the situation.  Walter Brueggemann has soundly denounced that myth in his recent book The Covenanted Self (1999), recommending that we need to relearn the truth of abundance, of dayenu.  The San Joaquin Valley is the land of dayenu:  what we are doing in this ministry is learning how to put into practice the truth of abundance in a land bound by the myth of scarcity.  In John 11, when Jesus tells the community to unbind Lazarus from his death clothes, he is showing us our roles as disciples:  to practice ministries of unbinding in order to move from death to life.  I have been called to unbind this region from its captivity to the rhetoric of agribusiness, and in its practice we are all finding new life.  Praise the Lord.

"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land - a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing..." Deut.8:7-9  

"All things are possible once enough human beings realize that everything is at stake."  Norman Cousins, as quoted in Spirit of Simplicity:  A 40-Day Guide for Lent and Easter, Alternatives for Simple Living, 2001  

--Written by Trudy Wischemann

Contact point:

Trudy Wischemann
Presbyterians* (*and Other People of Faith) for Small Farms
796 Homassel Ave.
Lindsay, CA  93247
Phone: (559) 562-5713
E-mail: wordworker@ocsnet.net -