WHAT IS THE FARM BILL?
Every five years, Congress must reauthorize the U.S. Farm Bill. This bill authorizes hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for everything from crop insurance for America’s farmers to food assistance for hungry families. It also includes $6 billion in annual conservation funding to improve soil health, increase water quality, conserve wildlife habitats, and harness the power of God’s creation to build resilience to climate-fueled extreme weather and lock away soil-enriching carbon. The current Farm Bill expires in 2023, and Congress is currently working on drafting a successor.
A conservation-forward Farm Bill is critical to protecting God’s creation, defending our kids’ health, and safeguarding our families, farmers, and food systems from climate-fueled disasters.
Learn more about the Farm Bill and how creation care extends to our nation's farmlands by subscribing to Regenerate, EEN's monthly faith and agriculture newsletter. With a diverse array of content from Upper Midwest Coordinator Tim Olsen, along with expert guest writers, this newsletter is for farmers and non-farmers alike. Sign up by clicking the link below!
Why Does the Farm Bill Matter for Christians?
What Farmers Are Saying
This year, EEN held twelve “Faith and Agriculture” listening sessions across Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to hear directly from farmers in the field about their priorities for the newest Farm Bill. Here's what we heard:
1. Keep new conservation benefits for farmers fully intact and stop efforts to repurpose conservation funds to other areas
2. Advance on-farm data collection and monitoring of soil and water health
3. Help conservation programs and incentives actually reach farmers by investing in technical assistance, staffing, public-private partnerships, and peer-to-peer information exchanges
4. Reduce barriers for conservation on rented lands and increase support for next generation, beginner, young, and underrepresented farmers to acquire land
5. Make a bold investment in transformational resilient agriculture research
How you can get involved
Join us in lifting your voice to support American farmers by sending a message to lawmakers about the benefits of a climate-smart, conservation-forward Farm Bill for the health and wellbeing of our children, food systems, farmers, and God’s creation. Click the link below to get started.
Learn More About Faith & Agriculture
Situated in the rolling loess landscape of NW Iowa’s Sioux County, the Agriculture Stewardship Center (ASC) is a 200-acre teaching and research farm supporting the educational activities of the Dordt University Agriculture Department. Operating since the early 1980s, the Dordt ASC supports teaching with hands-on opportunities for several emphasis areas in agriculture.
Iowa farmer and friend of EEN, Ray Gaesser, provides us with a harvest report after a season of intense and varied weather paired with the climate smart practices he utilizes on his farm. Ray urges farm communities and neighbors to come together and support each other in building soil health and resilience to benefit everyone.
Guest writer Doug Bos shares how extreme weather impacts soil health and farmers' ability to produce a plentiful, nutritious harvest. Learn how the Rock County Land Management Office in Minnesota seeks to support farmers in improving their soil health for the good of the community and God's creation.
This article explores some of the triggers of stress among farmers and how a long-term commitment to following soil-health principles may reduce the intensity of farm related stressors. Included is the story of Feikema Farms, data from a 2019 SDSU study, and ways we can all support our rural communities.
Rudolphi shines a light on the prevalence of depression and anxiety among farmers due to various agricultural stressors. She shares how the North Central Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Center as well as other programs have been working to break the stigma around farmer mental health, make services more accessible, and help communities be prepared to support their local farm families.
Farmers are called to be the shepherds of God's creation. As a seventh-generation farmer from Iowa, I hold this calling very closely and try to embody it on my farm and in my business at Continuum Ag. On the farm, my family has been very focused on improving soil health.
Society is facing many challenges, from climate issues including wide swings in temperature and moisture, to water quality and quantity issues, to low farm profitability, to the decline of rural communities, to our human health crisis. It is my belief that all of these can be linked, at least in part, to the degradation of our soil
Recently, two of EEN’s wise farm advisors were asked about the benefits of growing cover crops on their farms during this past spring’s wet weather. Rev. Tim Olsen shares out wisdom on cover crops from a few of our nation's farmers, especially in a time when extreme weather events are more prevalent.
From the Field is a new Question and Answer section of our Faith & Agriculture Newsletter, Regenerate. Questions from you. Answers from our Nation's Farmers. This month Shawn and Becky Feikema answer a question about the pros and cons of tilling versus no till farming.
During this month of June we recognize National Pollinators Month. The Rev. Philip Westra, of Sanborn, IA shares how beekeeping informs his personal spirituality and ministry leadership.
