Trek Day Twenty

growing corn
"prosper the work of our hands!" -nfrom Psalm 90:13-17

Dave Schrock-Shenk tells of  a global service-learning tour to a Mexican farm. A North American member of the tour group asked many questions, then calculated the labor costs paid by the Mexican farmer to the local women who were weeding the corn. Then he asked how much he paid to rent the field and maintain the plow. Knowing the local cost of corn, he realized the farmer was paying as much to grow his own corn as he would to just buy the finished product at the market from a larger grower. The tour member asked, "Why do you bother growing it?" The farmer gazed at his beautiful fields and his neighbors working together, then looked back at the visitor, confused. Schenk says,

Although one man spoke Spanish and the other English, it was not language that separated them, but their different views of life. The North American used numbers to evaluate corn as a finished product. The Mexican farmer valued the experience of growing corn for the way it maintained his relationships with people in his village, preserved the way of life handed down to him and allowed him the physical sensation and beauty of working in his cornfield.

Questions for Today

Who grows the food I eat?

How far does my food travel to get to my plate?

Are there ways I can strengthen by relationship with local growers 

who are giving their all to build a more sustainable and just food system in my area?