The Faith, Food & Environment project is continuing to work with our international partners to produce a reflection that we are calling “The Vocation of the Agricultural Leader”. There remains a great deal of anticipation for this ethical reflection on how food is produced in our modern industrial agricultural system — and what we believe needs to change for ethical, social and ecological reasons.
The Organizers of this project apologize for the time it is taking to complete a final version of the proposed reflection: they did not fully anticipate the amount of time it would take to review drafts and collect comments from our various partners around the globe. This entailed an agreeable balance in the tone and emphasis when discussing the various economic, social and environmental factors that go into the production and structure of the world food system.
In order to move the process along, a “first edition” of the Vocation of Agricultural Leader reflection for our North American readership will be released later this year. We will seek responses and reactions from American farm groups, agri-food companies, academics, environmental advocates, and others in our North American network.
Needless to say, we expect farmers, ranchers and food producers of all types to be particularly interested in our reflection on the food system – and how it should be guided and led in an ethical, sustainable and socially just way. This website will arrange a way for comments to be received, then posted in an orderly way. These will help shape a “second edition” of the reflection document, an edition that will also include the collaboration of our international partners.
For the time being, you can still express your reaction or opinion to how the document is shaping up. Draft language of the various sections of the document can be found in our Reflections section. Responses can be sent to Robert Gronski, coordinator of this website.