Posted By Phillip Morgan on Mar 5, 2019 | 2 comments

by Phillip T. and Megan M. Morgan

The excitement surrounding the 2017 documentary, Look and See, which engages the agrarian thought of Wendell Berry, highlights some of the fault lines in modern America. Many have grown tired of the empty promises of industrialization, while others have simply noted the soulless and placeless quality of the ubiquitous concrete and mallscapes of our cities.

Even those in rural America have not escaped the creep of industry. Many have sold off their family farms to major agribusiness corporations. Seed and processing companies mandate their farming practices. Connection to the land and community has been pushed to the margins to make room for profit.

For the past ten years, my wife and I have been making small attempts to alleviate the worst excesses of these cultural changes in our lives by embracing agrarianism. After we married, we began working together to reclaim some connection to the ground and to our food. Thankfully, we had some family traditions to guide us, but, in many ways, we were also striking out on our own. Along the way, we found counselors who encouraged us with their stories of their breaking away from consumer culture. We would like to tell you our story and offer some suggestions for beginning down this path. Not that everyone needs to move onto a farm, but we can all embrace aspects of the agrarian lifestyle and reap the benefits wherever we live.

Foundations of Agrarianism

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24, KJV).

In some ways, agrarianism has always been a part of Phillip’s life. For most of his childhood, his family lived on small parcels of farmland in the countryside of Robertson County, Tennessee. Nearly every year they raised one or two calves and/or pigs for slaughtering in the fall. They also raised gardens. His father is especially fond of homegrown tomatoes and peppers. So they usually focused on those plants, but they also raised other vegetables.

Megan was introduced to agrarian sensibilities through her paternal grandparents. Though they lived in Nashville, they always cultivated gardens. As a young girl, she would help work in the garden and can (preserve) the produce of their labor. In addition, she and her mother tended flower gardens every year. Still, she credits her introduction to Phillip’s family as a key turning point for her.

Even though Phillip’s upbringing was more directly agrarian than Megan’s, his interest in the subject began later. After college, he purchased a small piece of land near where he grew up. Only then did he begin to think about gardening and raising livestock for himself. Still, Phillip derived much of his agrarian interests from his experiences growing up, rather than from any intentional lifestyle change. 

Megan’s interest developed early through a fascination with seeing plants grow. After we married, Megan became intrigued with growing and processing food, because of her work making a home for our family. She was committed to providing healthy and excellent food for our table that also fit within our budget. That meant that she started learning to cook from scratch. As her knowledge about what goes into our food increased, she was convinced that raising our own food was important.

A couple of years into our marriage, we both began developing a more intentional engagement with agrarianism. We began to raise animals and gardens for our own food. Most of our early attempts were successful, but we also had several failures. Yet we didn’t allow the failures to dampen our spirits. Learning from mistakes is a valuable tool, and it has taught us to be flexible.

Our failures also highlighted our dependence upon God for all things. We were not in any mortal danger when the corn was destroyed by hail or the chicken flock was decimated by a wild animal attack, but these events did viscerally remind us of the fragility of our lives and the truth of God’s providence.

Animal Husbandry

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep (Jn. 10:11, KJV).

Our family has tried caring for a variety of livestock, some large and some small. This has becoming increasingly important for us for two reasons. First, we want to steward creation righteously and ensure that animals are treated justly and lovingly. They are not just tools for our gastronomical satisfaction but are fellow creatures. Second, we want to know what is going into our meat, eggs, and milk.

The industrial food complex has brought many benefits, but it has also introduced many problems into food production. Even the best industrial practices are prone to abuse the animals on their feedlots and in their chicken houses. Partly as a result of these less than ideal conditions, food producers have introduced many foreign substances into our food supply.

Before we married, Phillip bought two pigs to breed. We successfully produced two litters from these pigs and had plenty of fresh pork for several years. However, pigs are large, both in body and in smell, and they can be difficult and dangerous to handle. So, in 2012, when the Obama administration’s ethanol gasoline policies caused significant increases in the price of the corn we used as feed, we decided to kill the last of our pigs.

Over the past three years, we have tried our hand at raising smaller livestock. Since 2016, we have cared for a small flock of chickens. In our opinion, these creatures are the best for beginners because they are usually gentle and require minimal attention. Also, most cities allow citizens to own a few hens within the city limits.

At one point, we had eighteen hens and one rooster. Through this process, we began to discover the varieties of eggs that different breeds of chickens produce. Phillip found that he especially enjoyed the blue eggs laid by Ameraucana hens.

We’ve also killed several chickens and prepared them for our dinner table. This meat was much leaner than the chicken we purchased at the grocery store. Industrial chicken houses pump their chickens full of hormones and confine them to tight quarters in order to produce large fatty pieces of meat that bring in higher profits. Thus, raising our own chickens for meat allowed us to ensure that our chickens had good living conditions and that our food was not full of hormones.

Beyond our concerns about industrially produced chickens, we found that slaughtering our own chickens which we had raised from small chicks brought the whole process into focus. We oversaw and cared for creatures that would die so that we could eat. This natural, God-intended process gave us a new appreciation for our food. Every piece of meat came at a price and should be valued as a gift.

After learning the basics of animal husbandry with pigs and chickens, we are turning toward other creatures. This winter we purchased our first two meat-rabbits, which are also good animals for beginners, whether they live in the country or city.

Gardening

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it (Gen. 2:15, KJV).

Gardening was an important part of both of our early lives. Megan seems to have enjoyed her early experiences more than Phillip, but now we both find joy in this discipline. Megan especially enjoys the alternating solitude and comradery shared in the garden. Phillip finds that looking for the first slips of green to break through the crust of the earth is intoxicating.

Over the past eight years, our gardens have varied in size and kind based on our life circumstances. At first, we had only one or two tomato plants and a few Jalapeño and Cayenne pepper plants. Soon we expanded our garden to include beans, okra, squash, lettuce, and cucumbers. Most of these plants are good for beginners, because you can grow them in flowerpots, and they require little expertise.

While Phillip was writing his thesis for graduate school, we found we didn’t have time for a full garden. So we settled for a plant or two in a raised bed. Last year, we joined with Phillip’s parents to tend a very large garden in two plots, and this year we look to expand even further. Our children, Isaiah and Julia, are able to join us in various small tasks which can be fitted to their abilities as they grow. So we have found that gardens are adaptable to our changing life situations—certainly more so than the regular demands of animal husbandry.

Preservation

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise (Prov. 6:6, KJV).

Similar to our gardens, our attempts to preserve our food have varied based on our circumstances and skill. We both learned about canning and preserving from our families when we were young. However, the process (especially pressure canning) intimidated us so much that we didn’t put much up for several years, which meant that we lost a lot of produce after harvest. However, we’ve continued to learn about the art of preservation and last year we had more success putting vegetables up for the winter.

We began with freezing okra, because the process is so simple: Cut the okra up and put it in the freezer. With canning, we recommend starting with beans. They require the least amount of steps to prepare and are much less messy than tomatoes. The past year we also made our first attempt at jelly: jalapeño pepper jelly to be precise. With each attempt, we’ve found that our confidence and skills grow.

The end result is incredibly beautiful and brings a deep sense of satisfaction. Even though the process is challenging and a lot of work on the front end, opening a jar of your own food that is ready to be heated and eaten is a great reward.

Insights

Now learn a parable of the fig tree (Mt. 24:32, KJV).

Our attempts to embrace agrarian living in small ways have brought surprising insights. As Phillip has noted in an earlier essay, the discipline of gardening is instructive for our spiritual lives. But beyond what he has written there, we have learned other important lessons as we’ve run our fingers through the dirt.

First, caring for animals and cultivating crops gives us an intimate understanding of God’s command to care for creation. We don’t believe that God accidentally placed Adam and Eve in a garden where they served Him as priests in a temple.[1] The creation-cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26-30 is binding for all mankind. People will find that grasping this concept is difficult when they’re completely separated from the land. Therefore, even small attempts to reconnect with creation open our minds to understanding God’s command more fully.

Second, the agrarian life builds an abiding sense of God’s provision. When (at least) some of your food is dependent on the proper amount of rain and sunshine, your dependence on God becomes clear. Further, this sense of dependence flows over into every other aspect of your life. Our experiences caring for animals and plants have taught us gratitude for all things, for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17).

Building from this last point, we’ve found that agrarian living helps to break the hold of consumerism in our lives. We believe that capitalism is the best economic system for individual liberty and social justice, but that doesn’t mean it’s without problems. The constant buying and getting of our culture are destructive habits. Producing even a small amount of our own food gives us a modicum of freedom from the control of the market.

Lastly, living close to the land means living close to beauty. Undoubtedly you’ll experience plenty of unpleasant aspects of raising and preparing your own food. But doing so also reveals deep mystery and captivating beauty. We revel in the wonder of food-bearing plants and rejoice in the fascinating personalities of our animals. These experiences in the dirt and manure turn our eyes back to the heavens in grateful praise to our God of all mystery and knowledge and beauty.

Book Recommendations

Helen Lynne Culpepper, Grow. Cook. Preserve: The Complete Guide to Sustainable Food (Adams Media, 2015).

Gail Damerow, ed., The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals (Storey, 2011).

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Perennial Classics, 1994).

Vigen Guroian, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Eerdmans, 1999).

Horace, Odes and Epodes (first century BC).

All the Storey’s Guide books.

The website for National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Laura Ingles Wilder’s Little House series.

[1]See Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 88-91.

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