Ray Person of Bluffton, recently co-authored a chapter in the book “Religion and Sustainable Agriculture: World Spiritual Traditions and Food Ethics.”

Person and his wife, Elizabeth Kelly, are part of a farm coop on their farm in rural Bluffton.

The farm coop has 17 families involved, plus a waiting list of persons interesting in joining it.

“We produce meat, eggs, veggies, and fruits, using organic practices and working together as a group,” he said of the coop.

“Our three main goals are to produce quality food using organic practices, to build human community, and to rebuild non-human community through the improvement of wildlife habitat,” he said.

Person, professor of religion at Ohio Northern University, co-authored the chapter with Mark Dixon, an ONU philosophy colleague who specializes in environmental ethics.

Person explained that their chapter includes a discussion of Martin Heideggar's philosophy as it applies to three Mennonite Central Committee cookbooks and to the farm coop.

The three cookbooks are “More with Less,” “Extending the Table,” and “Simply in Season.” The cookbooks are available in Bluffton at Ten Thousand Villages.

Todd LeVasseur, one of the book editors, met Person at an ONU conference. Forrest Clingerman of Bluffton, and Dixon organized that conference.

Person said, “LeVasseur was interested in our farm and asked if I could write something about the farm for the volume.”

Adding that, “Mark (Dixon) and I had already started a conversation about writing something together about the farm and environmental ethics, so it was easy for us to agree to contribute to this project.”

The book is published by the University Press of Kentucky.