Gretel Van Wieren

The New Sacred Farm

The food and faith movement in the U.S. is a loose amalgamation of religious communities and organizations, clergy members and lay volunteers, activists and agricultural practitioners who are working, in varied and diverse ways, to address the social, ecological, political, and ethical challenges posed by current food systems. Oftentimes these groups work hand-in-hand with secular food and food justice organizations in organizing community supported agriculture projects, farm to school programs, educational efforts around health, nutrition, cooking, and gardening, and public policy advocacy efforts. What distinguish religious approaches to this work are the ritual practices and narrative tropes that oftentimes orient them. This paper explores some of these motifs by examining the work of three religious, community-based farming projects. It concludes that these religious farms and others like them should be considered sacred spaces for how they ritualize and symbolically interpret agricultural and food practices.