Korean Organic Farm Movement

The poet farmer writing in his column in the Catholic Times recalls a question he asked the children  at a Catholic 'Our Farm' movement event. "What is of greater importance eating or what we wear?" One girl, he thought was in third-grade  elementary school, shouted:  "food is always in the refrigerator when we open the door. Clothes are what are important." When even the children, he laments, consider clothes more important than food the future of the country does not look bright.

He wants parents to ask their children this evening  a couple of questions.  What do  you think is most precious, parents or money? What is more important, the food we eat or the clothes we wear? He wants us to ask ourselves what do we search for in life. Not an exclusive search for money, is it? We do not believe that money solves all our problems.  And yet, we study to make  money; we go to the workplace  to make money; we  marry to make  money; we buy a house to make money; we meet people to  make money....

Our farms, the  bosom of our mother, with the passage of time are collapsing, our environment is being polluted. The reason is that children, and  adults are not in search of truth but for comfort and money. No matter how important when faced with discomfort or the opportunity to make money truth is of little interest. If we look around us, we can quickly see the most important things are not bought with money.

The heavens, air, wind, sun, moon, ocean, clouds, rain, fog, earth, wood, grass, flowers, earthworms, bees, butterflies....We forget their importance in life. This is the reason we have sickness both of body and mind. We live with anxiety no matter how much we increase our possessions, power and honor, because, he says, we have distanced ourselves from the earth. We need, all of us, to return to the earth.

The Catholic 'Our Farm'  in Korea continues to influence many to join the  natural farming movement. Organic farming has become an ideal for many of the small farmers. The farmers know the price they are paying in using high technology in their farming methods. The farmers need to  make a living for their families, and organic farming is more difficult than the scientifically proven methods. Using pesticides and chemical fertilizers are much more lucrative.  The education of the consumers is necessary for when the housekeepers go shopping and begin to avoid the good-looking  fruits and vegetables and are willing to buy the more naturally looking fruit and vegetables at a higher price, the farmers will be making the changes in their methods of farming.