Now, Joyner is studying how to change farm practices in a time of climate change.
Walking across his ruined fields — a vast gray zone of brittle soil and dead weeds that crackle underfoot, he points to the road built several decades ago that divided the field in two.
“You could tell the elevation of that road is higher than this land,” he said. “This field has become a catch basin. It took me a while to see it until one of the guys came up and said, ‘your farm is sitting in a mud hole.’”
He’s now considering different ways of farming. He recently learned that tractors can compact soil and increase the risk of flooding by making the soil less porous. He also knows that high tunnels — unheated, plastic-covered hoop-house structures — can provide some protection from rain and include some anti-flooding drainage systems. One such high tunnel on the farm saved rows of peppers — banana peppers and habaneros — from being ruined. He now wants to build more.
But finally, there’s the job of advocacy — getting people to understand that they live in a relationship with creation and that if they abuse and manipulate that relationship there will be consequences.
Living in relationship to the earth and to other human beings and sharing that bounty is now the core of his spiritual journey.
“I’ve been in Christianity all my life,” Joyner said. “But, these fields have become the most powerful place of worship I’ve ever been on.”
It’s a lesson his parents and grandparents knew and one he hopes more people can recover.
“My grandma would always say, this is God’s beautiful earth and you have one responsibility, to leave it better than when you got here,” Joyner said. “I take that seriously.”
This article originally appeared here.
