Pastors and members representing congregations receiving a share of flour for communion bread harvest wheat at Plainsong Farm & Ministry in Michigan, USA, August 2018. Handout photo by Kristina Hemstreet, courtesy Plainsong Farm & Ministry.
Across the United States, more than 200 faith groups are members of an emerging Christian Food Movement
BALTIMORE, September 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As Baltimore was convulsed by protests in 2015 over the death of a young black man in police custody, a handful of people in the eastern U.S. city started worrying about a related issue: food.
Thousands of demonstrators thronged the coastal city's streets to protest the death of Freddie Gray, 25, forcing shops and schools in some neighborhoods to close - creating sudden food deserts, particularly for many people without a vehicle.
"People didn't have access to food," said Darriel Harris, a Baptist preacher, noting that many in the impoverished community where the protests hit hardest ate hand to mouth, relying on convenience stores or school lunches.
"If you're getting your food from school or if you're getting your food from the corner stores, and then the schools and the corner stores close — then how can you eat? It became a huge issue," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In response, Harris and two others quickly began to organize, drawing on contacts who had access to farms in nearby states and bringing supplies into affected neighborhoods to distribute via a local church, one of several groups doing so.
Their Black Church Food Security Network now plans to expand across the Mid-Atlantic states - with 20 churches in Baltimore alone already on board - as part of a burgeoning movement that brings together religious communities and agriculture.
Across the United States, more than 200 faith groups are members of an emerging Christian Food Movement, which promotes more sustainable food systems by growing their own crops, bringing idle land into use, and feeding the poor and hungry.
Harris says about nine churches in Baltimore are growing their own food — some selling it at reduced rates, and others giving it away to their congregations.
"Within the black community, the staple organization is the black church, and the black church is the largest landowner in black communities," he said, sitting in the small, urban garden that he oversees, staffed in part by ex-prisoners.
