Feature story
Across Kerala, in south India, many farmers have walked away from the land, convinced a shifting climate has made cultivation too risky. Rt Rev. Dr Malayil Sabu Koshy Cherian is walking back onto it. Each morning at 6:30, two hours before his first visitor arrives, the bishop of the Church of South India’s Madhya Kerala diocese is out among the long beans.
He works alongside a farm labourer: watering, checking irrigation lines, harvesting, turning soil. Only then does he take up the administration of nearly 400 parishes.
Farming, for him, is not a hobby. It is discipleship.
“The land belongs to God. God has entrusted it to human beings to cultivate for the sustenance of life. If we neglect the land that God has given us, it is not merely wastefulness – it is sin.”
“I cannot ask people to cultivate their land if I am unwilling to cultivate my own,” he says.
Farming as climate justice
The plot bears him out. Long beans, bitter gourd, okra, yam, and plantains grow alongside a fish pond. The variety is deliberate: mixed cropping builds soil health, spreads pest risk, and copes better with an erratic monsoon.
He farms largely organically, and precisely. Fertiliser goes in through the drip lines – three grams to each plant’s root zone, five times across a hundred-day crop cycle, alongside organic manure. Fermented cow dung and urine feed the soil. Pond water irrigates the beds, so nutrients circulate rather than drain away.
The diocese markets the produce. Over the past four years it has averaged around 800,000 Indian rupees (approximately 8,300 US dollars) a year, though vegetable prices fluctuate. The income goes back into the church’s ministry.
None of this is nostalgia. Serving congregations in Kerala, he has pressed parishes to put unused church land back into cultivation. “If we cultivate wisely and sustainably, agriculture can still provide a dignified livelihood,” he says. “Proper farming can reduce poverty and help build climate-resilient communities.”
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Bishop Dr. Malayil Sabu Koshy Cherian with his wife Dr Jessy Sarah Koshy
CSI MKD Communications
A mislaid inheritance
The idea is not new, only mislaid. When the Church Missionary Society established churches in Kerala in the 19th century, it acquired land and encouraged families living in poverty to farm it toward self-reliance. Cities grew, families migrated, and much of that land went quiet.
“The future of humanity depends not only on what we preach in our churches, but also on how we care for the land that God has entrusted to us,” he reflects.
Madhya Kerala is not unusual in owning land. The question is what a diocese does with it.
“Churches own land almost everywhere climate change is felt. What happens on it is ours to decide,” said Athena Peralta, director of the WCC Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development. “Restorative agricultural practices protects both climate and biodiversity.”
The WCC’s Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025–2034) has made climate and biodiversity its 2026 theme, and asks congregations for ecological metanoia – a repentance, a turning of heart in how we live with creation. In Kerala, that turn starts at 6:30, in a vegetable garden.
Understand a bit more
Ecological metanoia. Metanoia is a Greek word meaning a change of heart and mind. In the context of climate justice, ecological metanoia calls communities of faith to acknowledge their contribution to the destruction of creation and to change direction – personally, collectively, and systemically. It goes beyond guilt to embrace renewal and solidarity with those most harmed by ecological breakdown.
Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action
From lament to action: WCC gathers multiple faiths on biodiversity day
WCC, Caritas, World Vision launch “Give your loaves and fish”
IPCC AR6 WGII, Chapter 5: Food, Fibre and Other Ecosystem Products
FAO: Climate change and agriculture — strengthening the role of smallholders
