Book shows breadth of Mennonite farming

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This article was published 16/12/2021 (1263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The latest book by a distinguished local scholar takes readers on a globetrotting tour of Mennonite farmers, the faith that motivates them, and the social and environmental pressures that shape their decision-making.

Royden Loewen’s Mennonite Farmers: A Global History of Place and Sustainability was published last month by University of Manitoba Press.

Loewen, a senior scholar and former chair in Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg, said the book began eight years ago with a federal research grant.

Soon he and his research team were fanning out across the globe to interview Mennonite farmers located in seven very different contexts: Manitoba, Iowa, Bolivia, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Russia, and Zimbabwe.

“It’s a global history, but it parachutes you into the heart of seven communities,” Loewen explained Tuesday in an interview at Millview Farm, the certified organic farm on the outskirts of Steinbach that he runs with his son, Sasha.

Some of the book’s field work was captured in the 2017 documentary Seven Points on Earth, directed by filmmaker Paul Plett, who was raised in Landmark.

By the time research concluded, Loewen had amassed 159 interviews conducted in seven languages on six continents. Could he have chosen a more ambitious project to cap off his academic career?

“I don’t think so,” he replied with a chuckle.

Many of the book’s insights result from its comparative lens. Loewen said he likes the compare-and-contrast approach.

“What comparison does is, it lets you ask, what are the common questions that these guys ask, and what are the different challenges that they face in addressing those common questions?”

While the commonalities were illuminating, so too were the differences between the farmers.

Loewen said historians tend to be “splitters or lumpers,” driven to uncover either similarities or differences, but he’s happy to discover anything unexpected.

“I’ve always been driven by curiosity, by learning what I don’t already know.”

Local readers are likely to find the book broadens their conception of what constitutes a “Mennonite farmer.” It may be a Javanese rice farmer ploughing a small paddy with oxen, or an Iowan harvesting 10,000 acres from the seat of a combine.

Even so, those two farmers share something in common.

“You’re still intervening in nature, trying to coax the soil to produce food with an eye on the weather and one on the markets and on changing technologies,” Loewen said.

“If these guys could sit together, they could talk all day about their common challenges.”

In an era of climate change and social instability, the farmers also share worries.

“How do you make agriculture a sustainable thing, ecologically and socially? I think that’s a common concern.”

Loewen also wanted to learn how faith informs daily decisions on the farm. One Javanese farmer said in an interview that him faith keeps him from being greedy and enlarging his farm in ways that could affect his neighbour.

The book offers real-world examples of the resiliency and adaptability of Mennonite farmers, no matter the circumstances. Loewen said he especially enjoyed conversing with some interviewees in Low German.

Along the way there were surprises. In the Netherlands—birthplace of Menno Simons—Loewen expected to find a robust Mennonite identity.

“Well, of all the seven places, it had the weakest sense of being Mennonite,” he said.

Loewen, who grew up with four sisters and a brother, also included a chapter on the role that farm women occupy in patriarchal societies.

“I think I’m intrigued by the way women have been involved on the farm. Oftentimes it’s the male who has the attention.”

But underneath that “canopy” of patriarchy, Loewen said women are often active in decisions and food production.

“Within the home, the women are as talkative as the men.”

Loewen said writing the book helped him see Manitoba farming in a different light.

“I think we can always learn from seeing how farmers do it in different places.”

Most scholars strive to be outstanding in their field, but Loewen also likes to be out standing in his field. He remains committed to both farming and academic research.

“Throughout my early twenties I remember just constantly being torn,” he said.

“I spent half of my life trying to get off the farm, and the other half trying to stay on it.”

When he retired from teaching two years ago, he doubled the size of Millview Farm and joined the Manitoba Organic Alliance.

Loewen has now secured a second research grant that he will use to conduct research for his next book, a sequel of sorts, examining immigration’s role in transporting Mennonite agricultural knowledge around the globe.

Mennonite Farmers: A Global History of Place and Sustainability is available at Die Mennonitische Post. Copies are also on order at the Mennonite Heritage Village gift shop.