Many of the issues examined by the 2000 Farm Tour are the same as those that the National Catholic Rural Life Conference hopes to focus on as Congress prepares to write the 2002 Farm Bill. The 1996 Farm Bill, known as the Freedom to Farm Act, has been described as hurtful to the family farmer, something the NCRLC and other advocates hope to reverse in 2002.

Here is a sample of the information journalists learned firsthand from farmers and those connected to the larger, global agricultural industry:

• Since 1979, America has lost 300,000 family farms while corporate farms are becoming the norm.

• 70 percent of the processed food in the grocery store contains ingredients derived from genetically modified soybeans, corn and other plants that may cause allergies.

• Migrant and federally imported workers, largely Hispanic, are providing the work force in this industrial farm market, doing "some of the dirtiest, smelliest, most back-bending jobs...starting at first light to bring food to American tables," Father Rausch says. Many work 12-hour days, six or seven days a week with no minimum wage standard, living in substandard housing.

• The National Catholic Rural Life Conference, a voice for Catholic social teaching concerning farm issues, projects that in 10-15 years, if nothing is done to stop the concentration of the farm industry, as few as four corporations worldwide will control food production.

Farm issues and workers’ rights issues have also been the special focus of the bishops of the South. In November, they released the pastoral letter "Voices and Choices," which focuses on the poultry industry. An in-depth look at the pastoral, written by Susan Stevenot Sullivan who played a key role in researching, drafting and making the final presentation of the pastoral, is also included in the Spring issue of Glenmary Challenge.

Bishop John McRaith of Owensboro, Ky., one of the signers of the pastoral, spoke out on the uncritical acceptance of bigness in the agricultural business saying "Somebody’s paying the prices, not only for bigness but for cheap food." He and the other signers, Father Rausch writes, worry about the dignity of each person, the rights of workers and the care of creation.

One of the compelling stories in "Growing Awareness About Growing Food" tells of Mary Clouse. She and her husband were chicken farmers. Because of vertical integration—one large firm outside the local community controlling everything from production, processing and marketing of the food product—they were held at the mercy of the company that owned the chickens, literally serfs on their own land. The ransom held over their heads was the mortgage debt on their farm.

The growers don’t speak out because they are fearful of bankruptcy if the company cancels their contact, Father Rausch writes.

The conclusion Father Rausch draws following this study tour and as plans are being made to offer a similar tour this fall: "Eat responsibly with awareness, because eating is a moral act."