April 21, 1999

Ribbons show prayer power for farm crisis
___By Nancy Crowe
___Religion News Service
___GRAFTON, N.D. (RNS)--Over the past decade, low prices, weather, economic turmoil abroad and increased consolidation in agriculture have taken a heavy toll on family farmers. As a result, Rae Desautel, a retired farmer in Grafton, N.D., was seeing column after column of farm auction sale notices in the local newspaper.
___At her parish, St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Grafton, prayers are offered weekly for a multitude of concerns, she notes. One Sunday last year, Desautel thought another concern needed specific attention.
___"I went up to our priest ... and said, 'We pray for everybody, but I think we need to start including some of these farmers in our prayers,'" she said.
___Bert Miller Jr., known as Father Bert, agreed. He, too, knew something should be done for the many hurting farmers in their community and elsewhere. He and Margaret Bruce, pastoral minister at the church, brought their concern to the local ministerial association.
___And so, just about a year ago--on May 17, 1998--the association declared Green Ribbon Sunday and nearly every church in Grafton, a town of about 5,000, distributed small, dark green ribbons to worshippers. Each ribbon was accompanied by a card bearing the message: "We care in prayer" and a request for the recipient to wear the ribbon in support of all farmers and ranchers.
___Soon the message was spreading beyond Grafton, beyond North Dakota.
___North Dakota Agra-Women, to which Desautel belongs, spread the word. "I really thought it was important to have a farm organization connected," she said.
___"I wanted so desperately to have everyone in North Dakota know about the green ribbon," said Bruce, who came up with the "We care in prayer" slogan. "To see it spread the way it has is wonderful."
___The campaign, which also is being promoted by the National Catholic Rural Life Associaton, is one of the most visible ways churches are becoming aware and involved in the deepening farm crisis.
___According to church leaders and economists at a United Methodist Church-sponsored meeting in Parkville, Mo., in February, the figures are stark:
___ In September, Oklahoma's Department of Agriculture predicted 30 percent of the state's farmers and ranchers would be out of business within a year.
___ While the average individual income of Nebraskans rose 10 percent in 1998, farm income was down by 40 percent.
___ Wisconsin's Farm Crisis Hot Line, which responds to a variety of needs sparked by economic difficulties, received 2,000 calls in 1996 and 7,000 in 1998.
___ Kansas has had 293 farm-related suicides since 1986; Oklahoma has had 500.
___"Rural America and their way of life are under seige," said Peter Beeson, administrator with the Office of Strategic Management Services for the Nebraska Health and Human Services. "The question for the faith community then becomes, 'How will we respond?'"
___One response came from Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church USA, who wrote President Bill Clinton and Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman in February, expressing the denomination's concern about the crisis.
___"Today, the continuing existence of the family farm is in question because of the escalating economic crisis that exists in many rural communities throughout this nation," Kirkpatrick's letter said.
___His letter was prompted by a report from the Rural Ministry Advisory Committee, which took special aim at the role of large agricultural conglomerates it said were manipulating markets by undercutting prices for some goods.
___"Hopefully the church can be on the cutting edge of lifting up this issue to the whole church," said Diane Stephen, associate for rural ministry with the denomination's National Ministry Division.
___Bruce and Desautel made the issue painfully personal by recalling attending a forced farm auction sale and taking a few of the green ribbons to the home of one of the farmers.
___"I said, 'We just want you to know we care in prayer,'" Desautel said. "A family member replied, 'I guess that's all that's left for us, is prayer.'"
___She said other farm organizations also have joined the campaign.
___"Every cause seems to have its ribbon, and it's proper it should be green for farmers," Desautel said.
___The agriculture department in South Carolina called and asked to use the green ribbon at its state fair.
___Other inquiries have come from a sorority housemother at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks, a Minnesota woman forced to take a job off her farm and a Minnesota schoolteacher. All were interested in wearing the green ribbons to support and educate.
___The ribbon is supplied by the ministerial association--a local florist obtains it at cost--and cut by various women in town, primarily Desautel.
___Since the campaign has taken off, "I have been cutting and cutting and cutting," she said with a chuckle.
___ She has the cards printed at her expense, "but it's money well spent."
___Although the number of ribbons cut and distributed has not been tracked, Bruce estimated organizers have sent out well over 8,000 of them.
___The success of the campaign "tells me that people who are not farmers are recognizing the problem and that we do contribute a lot of wealth to a farming community," Desautel said. "Sometimes we feel that the urban people don't understand what's going on out here."
___Response from farmers has been especially rewarding, Bruce said.
___"One farmer came up to us and said, 'You know, we've done everything else. I guess it's time for prayer.'"

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