I’m still fired up from the Food Conference, with a million thoughts about the steps we should be taking as individuals, as a Jewish community, and as a nation to bring about a more sustainable food system and environmental renewal. The Shmita Project sessions at Asilomar were the first steps in a 7 year plan to change the Jewish communal discussion about food, farming, and a Jewishly-informed Farm Bill, and we’ll be reporting on them soon. Thank you to everyone who attended.

In today’s fast-paced world, with the emphasis on immediate, tangible results, even a 7 year plan can seem like a long time. As we’ve written about before, the shmita ideally meant that you had to relinquish your focus on the immediate to keep an eye on the long-term concerns of every member of your society, especially the less fortunate. In addition to the Shmita, the Torah has laws for the Yovel, the 50-year Jubilee cycle, which also worked to prevent entrenched poverty (the modern Jubilee Movement has focused on debt relief to developing countries). Can we as a Jewish community think 50 years ahead on issues of food sustainability and environmentalism? What would that project look like?

Thinking 50 years ahead is precisely what agrarian movement leaders Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson argue for in a wonderful editorial in the New York Times called “A 50 Year Farm Bill.” Focusing on the critical problem of soil erosion due to industrial agricultural practices, they argue against the modern idea that “as long as we have money we will have food.” If our agricultural lands degrade to the point that they no longer sustain crops, science will not be able to fill the void. There are changes we could make right now, including crop rotations and the planting of perennial plants (like one might have needed to plan for the Shmita or the Yovel, perhaps).

This is their call to action:

Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities. This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.

Amen. In the 5-7 years before the next Farm Bill, we can plan for ourselves. 50 years is time to plan for the next generation. It’s our obligation, before it is too late.

Learn more about the Shmita Project or get involved by emailing shmitaproject@hazon.org.