Typical late nineteenth–century Amish farms were small, diversified enterprises heavily reliant on family labor. The 1880 census, for example, revealed that Amish families in Johnson County, Iowa, produced modest amounts of corn, wheat, hogs, and cattle, just as their non-Amish neighbors did. The Amish households, however, churned much more butter. Because butter making was a task of women and children, its production points to intensive family labor. Despite being small and diversified, Amish farms were tied to local markets and not simply engaged in subsistence agriculture. Cash crops were common. They varied by region and included tobacco in eastern Pennsylvania and commercial peppermint in northern Indiana.6
The use of tractors and other engine-powered field equipment in the first half of the twentieth century revolutionized agricultural production in mainstream America.7 Machine power in the field and electrification in the barn increased output and the scale of farming. In the words of Amish farmer Gideon Fisher, “The world of inventions made a greater change after 1900 than it did in all the years [until then],” due to the advent of “monstrous equipment.”8 Although most Amish had stayed abreast of new farm technology in the nineteenth century, they largely froze their turn-of-the-century farming methods for the next five decades. Their resistance to the new engine-powered equipment was rooted in a fear that it would lead to large-scale mechanized farming that would destroy the pattern of family farms that had anchored Amish society for decades.9
A few Amish people flirted with the new technology. The tractor was the most contentious issue, and in several settlements in the 1930s and 1940s Amish farmers began using tractors to plow and power field equipment, only to have their churches forbid them. In the Arthur, Illinois, settlement in the early 1940s, for example, three of the five bishops were sympathetic to using tractors. Unable to find a consensus on their own, they asked bishops from other settlements to help them mediate the issue, which resulted in a taboo on the tractor. A few settlements in Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma did approve tractors for field work, but the vast majority of Amish settlements across the country rejected them.10 Some groups, while banning tractors in the field, allowed them as stationary sources of power around the barn. In such cases the tractor functioned much like a nineteenth-century steam engine, running threshing machines and feed grinders in the farmyard. Until about 1950 the forces of tradition, with a few exceptions, had triumphed by forbidding the use of tractors and engine-powered machines for field work. Those restrictions began to change somewhat in the last half of the century, as we show in chapter 17.
In short, the scale, style, and technology of Amish farming in the first half of the twentieth century remained static. Amish people opted out of the massive mechanization in American agriculture. Amish farmers continued using horse-drawn machinery and retained their small, diversified, family-based farming operations.
The Big Squeeze: 1950–2000
If Amish agriculture changed little during the first half of the century, the second half brought a turbulent time of adaptation, crisis, and decline. By the mid-twentieth century, the mechanization of American agriculture and its growing corporate scale made it difficult for small Amish farmers to thrive. The Ordnung that governed farming practices into the 1950s had been shaped by the traditional family farm, and a half century of Amish life was now wrapped into that Ordnung so that any modifications of the taken-for-granted regulations threatened Amish identity. In every settlement and affiliation across the country, the farming Ordnung was under intense strain as it met the revolutionary changes in agriculture.
This small, traditional Swartzentruber Amish farm is located in Pontotoc County near Randolph, Mississippi. In many progressive communities, other types of water pumps have replaced windmills. Erin Jaffe
The most traditional groups continued to cling to small, non-mechanized family farms, while higher groups began adopting and adapting technology to boost their agricultural productivity while staying within the bounds of the Ordnung. For example, since Amish farmers were now unable to purchase horse-drawn machinery from commercial suppliers, who had switched entirely to tractor sales, they turned to building horse-drawn equipment of their own. Moreover, they began modifying large factory-built machines—designed for tractors—so that they could be powered instead by small gasoline engines and pulled by horses.
Changes at the Barn
Although the struggle over the tractor was settled in the first half of the century, the battle over barn technology erupted after 1950. This struggle—involving how to operate a profitable dairy without electricity—focused on two technologies: mechanical milkers and bulk cooling tanks for the milk. The old-style method involved milking cows by hand and chilling milk in large cans in cold water. This labor-intensive milking ritual basically limited herd size to about a dozen cows and required transporting the milk to a local creamery once a day.
After 1940 the growing availability of vacuum milkers powered by electricity made it possible to greatly expand herd sizes. Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, state health regulations for handling and chilling milk made a sharp distinction between Grade A milk for direct consumption and Grade B milk used for making cheese. Grade A, which brought a much higher price, could not be transported in cans and chilled in water but required rapid cooling in bulk refrigeration tanks typically powered by electricity.
The lower Amish groups resisted any innovation in dairying and settled for selling their milk as Grade B to cheese plants. In some of their settlements, in fact, new cheese factories were established for or by Amish people so they could continue to operate their old-style dairies. In Wisconsin, at least half a dozen cheese plants still serve primarily Amish communities. In Conewango Valley, New York, a cheese producer provides a market for Amish milk and a place of employment for members of the Troyer Amish affiliation who live there.11 When a cheese plant in northern New York closed in 2008, the region’s staunchly electric-resistant Swartzentruber Amish, who had relied on the plant as an outlet for their Grade B milk, suddenly had to devise a way to meet Grade A requirements. They agreed to build cooling stations with bulk refrigeration tanks on land owned and electrified by English neighbors. The arrangement, which allowed them to ship Grade A milk without electrifying their own farms, was permitted only in districts that had no access to a cheese plant.12
Debates about using vacuum milkers and bulk cooling tanks continued into the twenty-first century in some communities. Those that adopted mechanical milkers and bulk tanks powered their milking systems and refrigeration units with a diesel engine located in a shed adjacent to the barn as well as with the help of 12-volt electricity from batteries. Communities often adopted milkers and bulk tanks at about the same time, but not always. For example, in 2002 sixteen of eighty-one districts in Geauga County, Ohio, permitted bulk tanks, but only seven permitted milking machines.
Adopting new farm technology highlighted the way the Ordnung governing farming was especially resistant to change. One Ohio bishop explained it like this: “All of our farm work is visible to the community, unlike industrial work hidden in a factory or shop.” Because farming is so public, the Ordnung is transparent, and “people can see what you are doing, what tools and equipment you are using and what practices you are following so you can receive advice and counsel from the community.” Shop owners, in contrast, often faced fewer restrictions when adopting new technology because their enterprises were new and unburdened by generations of tradition.
A young Amish woman cleans a vacuum milker beside a stainless steel bulk tank in the milk house of her family’s large dairy. Vacuum milkers and bulk tanks were often controversial in Amish settlements because they required electricity and diesel power. The most traditional farmers continue to milk their small herds by hand and haul their milk in large cans. Daniel Rodriguez
Some farmers complained that an inflexible farming Ordnung was actually pushing young families into nonfarm employment and suggested that, if church leaders wanted to save the family farm, the Ordnun
g would need to be relaxed. In 2002 dairy farmers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, pleaded with their bishops for permission to use horse-drawn harvesters, rather than old-fashioned corn binders, to cut corn for silage. After noting that the prices of all of their supplies, equipment, and cows had risen, they declared, “We have no choice; we have to have a lot more cows.” They warned that, if change was not forthcoming, farmers would be forced to “rent out all their ground and buy all their feed. … This will bring a big change for our way of life.”13 The bishops were not sympathetic to the farmers’ pleas.
Some communities did relax their farming Ordnung, but the results did not necessarily save the family farm. In the 1970s, the Arthur, Illinois, Amish shifted to large laying hen, hog, or cattle feeding operations on smaller plots of land.14 But volatile commodity prices and environmental regulation of animal waste soon rendered this model as problematic as traditional farming. By the 1980s, Amish people in all but the most conservative communities were shifting away from the timeworn path of the plow.
Leaving the Plows Behind
Beginning in the 1940s, small numbers of Amish men began to find employment off the farm. As early as the 1960s, some household heads in the Nappanee, Indiana, settlement chose to take nearby industrial jobs and rent their land to non-Amish neighbors. During the 1980s, a combination of economic and demographic pressures squeezed many large Amish settlements and spiked nonfarm work.
On the one hand, due to large families and high retention rates, Amish communities were experiencing a population explosion: there were simply too many babies for too few acres. On the other hand, in most historic Amish settlements those acres were skyrocketing in price as suburbanization and rising real estate taxes pushed farming out of the financial reach of many young families. Escalating prices for hybrid seeds, fertilizer, equipment, and veterinary bills all conspired to make farming an expensive enterprise, even on a small scale. At the turn of the twenty-first century, buying a farm, equipment, and cattle for a dairy operation could cost $2 million dollars in some regions. As shown in table 15.1, many young families, sizing up their options, decided that farming was not possible—or that the much smaller investment needed to start a shop or retail store was more attractive.
By the 1990s, in all but the most conservative communities, Amish farming was in a slump if not a crisis. Geauga County, Ohio, for example, lost 26 percent of its 208 dairy farms in the seven-year period from 1990 to 1997.15 One Amish writer ruefully noted that “the morale among farmers reached its lowest ebb in the mid-to-late 1990s. Many had the attitude that farming was only for the simple-minded or for those too stubborn to acknowledge the times in which we live.”16
Growing Diversity in Contemporary Farming
Despite the farm crisis of the late 1900s, thousands of Amish families were still in agriculture at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In fact, although the percentage of Amish farmers has declined sharply, the rapid Amish population growth means that the actual number of families that are farming is still increasing, albeit slowly. In many cases, households committed to farming left communities plagued by high real estate prices for more sparsely populated areas where land was more affordable and they could farm profitably. For example, Vernon and Ida Borntreger, their five children, and two other families moved from Tennessee to Fulton County, Arkansas, in 2009 to begin a new settlement where the Borntregers now grow produce. “It’s something that we can do as a family,” explained Vernon.17 Similarly, a woman in western New York noted that families had moved to her settlement so they could continue farming: “I think the men want to be home earning their own money. In my opinion, if the men are home, they can help raise the children.”
Table 15.1. Percent of Amish Household Heads Whose Primary Occupation Is Farming
Small family farms remain the dominant source of livelihood for the lowest groups such as the Nebraska, Swartzentruber, and Troyer Amish. With strict restrictions on technology, they continue to operate small, low-tech family farms much as they have for decades, with a dozen or so cows for milking, supplemented by some swine and poultry. These labor-intensive operations rely on horse power and rarely permit internal combustion power in the fields, although some use gasoline engines on sprayers or for power to fill silos or operate stationary hay balers. Farmers milk their dairy cows by hand and sell their Grade B milk, chilled in cans, to cheese plants. Children work side-by-side with their parents and dream of owning their own farms someday. Although these farms are small in scope, their economic well-being fluctuates somewhat with the larger economy. Amish farms are insulated from the worst economic vacillations, however, because costs are low and labor is supplied by family members. To provide an economic cushion, some families establish small home businesses such as craft production to provide work during the slower winter months.
At the other end of the continuum are larger, relatively high-tech Amish farms whose dairy herds range from forty to eighty cows. These dairies use vacuum milkers, chill their milk in bulk refrigeration tanks, and sell it as Grade A. The cows are bred by artificial insemination, non-Amish veterinarians use antibiotics to treat the herd, and the farmers track the individual productivity of each cow. Agronomists advise these farmers on soil fertility and the use of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides. Engine-powered equipment, pulled by horses or by tractors in a few districts, is used to till, plant, and harvest crops. These larger Amish farms are substantial financial operations whose fortunes rise and fall with commercial feed costs and regional market prices. Yet even they are small compared with the scale of commercial agribusinesses. There are, of course, many variations of Amish farms between the small family operations and the larger ones described here.
Crops vary by type and size of operation and region of the country. Common crops include corn, wheat, spelt, clover, barley, alfalfa, and a variety of hay and grasses for grazing. Tobacco is grown in some Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland, and Wisconsin communities. The type of livestock—chickens, hogs, goats, cows, beef cattle—also varies by region. Many Amish farms focus on dairying. In Wisconsin eight in ten Amish farmers milk cows, while in Michigan 60 percent and in Minnesota almost half do. Professor John A. Cross estimates that there are more than ten thousand Amish dairy farms in the United States and that they constitute about one-eighth of the nation’s dairy farms. Cross expects that the Amish share will increase to one-fifth by 2015, yet because of the small size of their operations, they will produce a far smaller proportion of the nation’s milk.18
Rebooting Agriculture for the Future
In order to keep a solid footing on the shifting landscape of agricultural life, Amish farmers are finding new strategies for survival. Many farm families survive economically by supplementing their income with sideline earnings from other sources, especially as multi-generation families pool their resources. In one case a husband and wife with several children share the bulk of the farm work with help from a grandfather, while an unmarried brother-in-law operates a small furniture shop in a retrofitted corn barn. Meanwhile, a sister operates a small fabric store adjacent to the house, the grandmother takes in work as a seamstress, and several of the teenage children raise guinea pigs for sale to a local pet store.
Amish people in some regions tap maple syrup and sell it commercially as part of their farming and/or lumber operations. Karen M. Johnson-Weiner
Beyond this sort of creative combination of resources and labor, a growing number of households have sought to revitalize agriculture by launching new ventures such as cheese making, produce auctions, organic farming, intensive grazing, greenhouses, and other enterprises that promise to give rural life a second wind.19
Produce Farming and Auctions
Traditionally, all Amish families had gardens to supply food for their families, and many sold produce at farmers’ markets in nearby towns or at roadside stands near their homes for supplemental income. In the late twentieth century, however, produce farming for wholesale markets became a v
iable option and expanded rapidly. Produce auctions gave such endeavors a major boost. The first Amish-organized auction was established near the town of Leola in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1985. Other auction houses followed, and by 2010 Amish and Old Order Mennonite settlements across America were operating more than sixty auctions in numerous states. Farmers bring their produce by horse-drawn wagons or hired trucks to an auction building that is open several days a week from March to November.
At a typical Amish-operated auction, wholesale buyers from local food stores, restaurants, and even large grocery chains bid on cantaloupes, watermelons, sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, apples, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, herbs, and many varieties of flowers. A local board of directors owns and operates the auction and hires staff (some of them non-Amish). The auctions offer growers a dependable nearby outlet for their products at competitive prices that fluctuate with supply and demand. Some but not all of the produce sold on auction is organically grown. A monthly newsletter, Truck Patch News, and two regional gatherings of several hundred growers have bolstered the movement.20
Fewer than ten acres of land are needed for produce farming, and the profit per acre is much higher than conventional Amish crop farming. One family that grows an acre of grape tomatoes earns an average of $39,000 a year before labor costs. Although the crop is labor intensive, the cash outlay for labor is low because family members perform the work.21 In some states, agricultural extension agents have promoted Amish produce farming. For example, in Missouri, where Amish and Mennonite farmers raise 10 percent of the state’s fresh vegetables, extension agents conducted four workshops on growing practices that can improve production and reduce toxic damage. More than two hundred Amish and Mennonite growers attended the workshops.22
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