We are creatures inhabiting an.jpg "Working at TGC")
d deriving our biological being from a creation, all sustained by a Creator. Too often those of us in the Christian tradition have neglected or disparaged the physicality of our being, forgetting that we were made for a spiritual life not divorced, but married to a physical life.
Conversely, in recent times the secular trend has intellectually and arrogantly discarded the idea of a Creator and made our own progress as mere physical beings the end all. And though they dissected and catalogued the natural world more than ever before, their god-like posture lacked the humility to admit their ignorance and proceed with caution. Careful, conservative land use, respect for ancient wisdom and traditions, was readily traded for technological efficiency. As a result we have a world of profit being made for a handful of corporations while a world of pollution is piling up for future generations.
After World War II the stuff we were using to make bombs, ammonium nitrate, made reliance upon careful crop rotations for natural nitrogen inputs from specialized bacteria obsolete. Farming became even bigger business, not content to serve its market, it advertised and shaped its market, and carelessly disregarded the cycle that for millennia traveled from soil to plant to animal back into and nourishing soil. With profit in the heart and technology in the mind, the disruptive way of new synthetic fertilizers now seemed to necessitate chemical pesticides. We at 8th Day Farm believe that humility should give us pause before we intervene with the intricate and interconnected creation that God oversees. It should come as no surprise that humanity’s proud and greedy tampering has backfired as our toxins contribute to our epidemic of cancer and our factory meat and high fructose corn syrup to heart disease and type II diabetes. Our philosophy at 8th Day Farm is to avoid all synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides. We see the farm as part of a delicate ecosystem which, though we shape with our planting and picking, we honor with techniques that promote the biological diversity that brings balance and wholeness.
We see the farm as natural habitat, complete with soil, air, water, bacteria, insects, and birds alongside herbaceous and woody plant life. In honoring our Creator we hold to a land ethic that builds a living soil through less tilling, more cover cropping and green manures, thoughtful crop rotations, and diverse cropping. Agriculture in the hands of purely business and utilitarian minded folks quickly loses sight of the gift of land: it is a resource to be shared, not exploited for personal gain. Our mission at 8th Day is to care for people and creation with the small plot we have been given.