Charles W. Fluharty, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, is president emeritus and director of policy programs at the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Barbara J. Dilly is associate professor of anthropology at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. Her research interests include the rural church and American agriculture.

The Churches’ Center for Land and People, based in Middleton, Wis., is is an ecumenical organization working to strengthen rural life and the ministries of faith communities in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. It is sponsored by a number of Christian denominations, religious orders and other organizations.

Daryll E. Ray is a professor and holds the Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He directs the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center. See a column on the 2012 farm bill that he wrote with Harwood Schaffer, research assistant professor for the center.

Several monasteries are scattered across the country. See a list with their contact information.

The Rev. L. LaSimba M. Gray Jr., pastor of New Sardis Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., lobbied Congress on behalf of Bread for the World for reforms in the 2007 farm bill.

Michael Leo Owens is an associate professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. specializing in urban politics; state and local politics; political penology; governance and public policy processes; religion and politics; and African American politics. He is the author of the 2007 book God and Government in the Ghetto: The Politics of […]

Norman Wirzba is professor of theology and ecology at Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. His research focuses on “understanding and promoting practices that can equip both rural and urban church communities to be more faithful and responsible members of creation,” specifically through eating as a spiritual discipline, theological reflection as informed by place and agrarianism […]

Daniel Vestal was the executive coordinator of the Atlanta-headquartered Cooperative Baptist Fellowship until 2012. He lobbied Congress about the 2007 farm bill for reforms aimed at helping rural areas and poor farmers.