Food, land, and agriculture are three major interrelated bBiblical topics that reoccur frequently throughout the entire Bible. It is vital that faithful readers of Scripture recognise the importance and prominence of these topics to the Bible’s message as they constitute an essential context for many of the Bible’s stories, laws, precepts, and teachings. If we neglect to consider these contextual matters, we may fail to grasp the fullest extent of what God’s word is communicating and may misinterpret some passages entirely. As one Old Testament scholar has argued, the Bible is a deeply agrarian book, written by those who either had a direct connection to the land by being farmers or shepherds, or who lived amongst men and women whose primary occupation was agriculture. [1] Wherever you look in the Scriptures, the land and agriculture are never far away.
The agricultural context of the Bible becomes explicit at certain points. Many of the Old Testament laws are concerned with land regulations and farming practices and covenantal blessings for the Israelites were partly mediated through the land, its fertility, and productivity. [2] In the New Testament, the majority of Jesus’s parables are based on agricultural themes, and shepherding metaphors describe the role of elders in the Epistles. In fact, the preferred source of metaphors and imagery across the entire Bible appears to be agriculture: the Lord is our Shepherd; the harvest is ripe; like a tree firmly planted; be fruitful; to name just a few. In the similar way that God designed marriage for human reproduction and to illustrate Christ’s relationship to the Church, it could be said that God designed agriculture not just to physically nourish us, but to illustrate Spiritual truths that nourish our souls.
Agriculture is evidently a topic of great importance biblically; its importance is only heightened when we consider its essentiality for human survival. Though at times and in certain cultures, hunting, gathering, and fishing have provided the major source of food for humans, agriculture has been the main source of food for humanity across history and was established by God at the beginning in the Genesis account. Agriculture is God’s chosen method of nourishing and feeding humanity. In light of agriculture’s importance both to the Bible story and to human history, it is critically important that our agriculture is performed in a manner which blesses our population and glorifies God. Can we, then, deduce principles from the Bible that shape and inform our agricultural practices at the local and national level, and also which inform what our agricultural aims and objectives are? I believe the answer to these questions is a hearty yes.
What follows is a brief outline of some core agricultural principles deduced from Scripture that comprise a biblical perspective on agricultural policy. Though the direct application of certain biblical practices and laws are no longer applicable today, such as jubilee regulations, I believe timeless principles based on the intent, motivation, and applications of these stipulations can be deduced. It is this intent-purpose framework of Old Testament laws and regulations, based on Christopher Wright’s Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, that I adopt in this paper. [3]
Biblical Principles of Agriculture
The land and its soil are a gift from God to be stewarded well for His glory. God is the ultimate owner of all land. [4] He gives it to humanity for us to exercise dominion over it in a manner modelled on His dominion of us. We have no God-given right to do as we please or to abuse it. This fundamental principle of good stewardship must inform our modern methods and practices of agriculture: they ought to be locally appropriate/adapted, sensitive, constructive rather than destructive, and both economically and ecologically sustainable. Ultimately, our practices of agriculture ought to be a blessing to the whole human community and the whole community of creation. One biblical regulation that evidences this attitude was the command to let the land rest in fallow every seventh year, which coheres with modern day agricultural principles of rehstoring soil fertility by fallowing the land in rotation. [5]
A nation and its farmers should meet the food needs of its population. This means producing sufficient food both calorifically and nutritionally and also food which satisfies cultural requirements and diets. As much as a nation is able, it should seek to be self-sufficient in food production of vital food stuffs. Israel was to depend on God not surrounding nations. This does not preclude trade and imports - we see Israel importing spices and other food stuffs - but the majority of staple crops ought to be home produced so as to not jeopardise the security (both food security and national/military security) of the nation.
The whole population should be sufficiently fed and well nourished. Particular care must be taken for those existing at or below the poverty line. Gleaning regulations permitted the poor to take left over produce from farm fields for free, and this right was legally protected. [6] There is potential for something similar in modern national policy through making sure that out-of-date food (which is still perfectly edible and safe for human consumption) is offered to the poor for free or at reduced cost. Christians blessed with abundance also ought to be those who share their food (and/or money) liberally with the poor, though care must be taken not to create dependencies or remove agency from those in poverty. Though safety nets and emergency food provision must be available to meet urgent needs, these measures should be a last resort and must not take the place of financial and domestic skills capacity building in the lives of the poor.
Farmers and farm labourers ought to be adequately compensated for their labour and safeguarded against exploitative/dangerous working conditions. In the Book of James, certain individuals are condemned for depriving workers of their wages [7] and some of Jesus’ parables make reference to fair compensation for workers. Sadly, one of the hidden costs of the drive for cheap food is farmers struggling to put food on their own tables, something our modern food systems are complicit in. Exploitative labour and cruel/dangerous working conditions are also impermissible when we consider that each person is precious and made in the image of God and that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Farm ownership ought to be distributed and, where possible, farms should remain within the family. Though the exact requirements of the Jubilee law are not applicable in the New Covenant age, and would be highly problematic to implement in a modern financial context, the Jubilee practice does offer timeless principles and ideals that can be translated into modern laws and behaviours such as ensuring land stays with the family who know it intimately and can farm it with knowledge and affection (dispositions which are essential to the good work required by the first principle) and also ensuring that agricultural land is not to be used as a commodity for speculation and acquisitive land grabs, [8] something which the Jubilee law made impossible. Also relevant to the prevention of land grabs, speculation, and land consolidation is the woe pronounced against those who add field to field in Isaiah, a practice which demonstrated inordinate greed.
The wider creation and wild species should benefit from our farming practices. We often overlook that the creatures were also commanded to be fruitful and multiply. [9] Agriculture is the main land use over much of the surface of the world which means it is a habitat shared by an immense number of species, some of which have come to rely on agricultural habitats for their survival. [10] As far as is possible, wild creatures should benefit from our agricultural practices, through sensitive management, marginal areas being left for wildlife habitat, limits on proven toxic agrochemicals and destructive/overly intensive practices limited. Surpluses should also be left, when and where possible, for wild creatures to consume. [11]
The use of soils, the land, and other natural resources must be sustainable. Our generation’s use of this earth must not impede the potential for future generations to flourish. God’s blessings are multi-generational, to children’s children. Our lifestyle and practices must not stand in the way of this. Sustainable use of this earth ensures that our generation can benefit from the abundance and provision of creation in a way which does not harm or damage creation’s ongoing productive capacity to provide for future generations. [12] Greed, living beyond our means, environmental degradation, and over extraction are all thus prohibited. Ideally, we should transcend mere sustainable use by leaving the land in a better state than when we inherited it. One way of achieving this is to obey the agricultural ‘doctrine of return’ [13] which was fundamental to the traditional mixed farming systems that dominated Britain pre-World War Two. [14]
These seven principles can be synthesised into one core principle: a biblical food policy should ensure abundant provision of good food in a manner which the whole community of creation, mankind and animals alike, benefit to the glory of God. The ways and means of achieving this, and the specific agricultural practices and crops/livestock used will differ from place to place in accordance with a range of biophysical and cultural conditions and limitations. However, each agricultural region and each individual farm should seek to conform their practices and systems to these seven principles drawn from the Bible. In a future paper I wish to critically assess how well current British agricultural policy and practice conforms to these biblical principles.
Hadden Turner, Sedbergh, UK. Writes at: https://overthefield.substack.com
“The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Jubilee Centre or its trustees.”
[1] Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture and Agriculture, Cambridge University Press. C.S. Lewis makes a similar argument in his essay Nature.
[2] Deuteronomy 28:11-12.
[3] Christopher Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, InterVarsity Press.
[4] Psalm 24:1.
[5] Leviticus 25: 3-4 and Higgs, et al. (1990). Crop Rotations: Sustainable and Profitable. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 45, 68–70.
[6] Leviticus 19:9-10.
[7] James 5:4
[8] See Mike Bird, The Land Trap, Portfolio Press, for an extended treatment of the social and economic problems with land grabs and land speculation.
[9] Genesis 1:22
[10] See Aebischer et al. (2016) Twenty years of local farmland bird conservation: the effects of management on avian abundance at two UK demonstration sites. Bird Study, 63, 10-30.
[11] Exodus 23:10-11.
[12] Amundson, R. et al. (2015) Soil and human security in the 21st century. Science 348, 10.1126/science.1261071
[13] See https://overthefield.substack.com/p/investing-in-the-precious-land for an extended treatment on the doctrine of return or the principle of soil reinvestment, and also Wendell Berry, The Agrarian Standard
[14] G.A Squires, ‘The Small Farmer on The Land’, In Massingham [ed] The Natural Order, Dent.
