Sustainable agriculture – tending the land in ways that will yield a better harvest not only this year, but for years to come – is practiced by farmers and home gardeners alike. One technique popular with rice farmers in Cambodia is keeping ducks to improve the rice crop.
Every morning, the farmer lets her flock of ducks out of their pen and leads them to the rice paddy, where they happily paddle in the shallow water all day. The ducks eat the bugs that would otherwise eat the rice and leave behind their droppings as fertilizer. The farmer has a better crop of rice, and she also has fresh eggs for her family’s table and for market.
Wise farmers use the gifts that God has given and that they have cultivated to tend the land God has entrusted to them so that it not only produces well now but will continue to do so for future generations. We, too, can sustain what God has entrusted to us so that those who come after us can share in and rejoice in God’s generosity too.
This message is excerpted from “Sustaining what God has given to us” by Audrey Novak Riley from the May 24, 2023, blog of the Women of the ELCA.
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