Amish/Mennonite Dominance in Farming?

 

Read this tweet today:

Young Mennonites posh with cash from selling in high priced areas are stopping at random farms around here trying to buy the farmers out. Fastest growing sector of farmers in my area, along with young Amish.

— NYFarmer (@NYFarmer) April 24, 2022

Back in the day it seemed as if the "Pennsylvania Dutch" and Amish were the same, with the majority living in PA.  In the 60+ years since I'm aware that Amish communities have been established in many states in the Northeast and Midwest.  I assume the Mennonite pattern is somewhat similar.  I know not all Amish are dairy farmers, or even farmers of any type.  And I don't know how heavily they're represented among those leaving dairy farmer.

 So my question is--are close are the Amish/Mennonites to establishing a dominance in dairy farming above the Mason-Dixon line?  How about the organic and traditional (i.e. pasture/silage) types of dairy? 

I assume the statistics aren't readily available from the government. 

Amish Versus Satmars

 New Yorker has a review of a book on the Satmar, the Hasidic sect with its own town in NY. It starts with this joke, which led me to think about the distinction between the two.  

In an old joke, a secular Jew sits down on a park bench next to a man with a large black hat and a long black coat. The secular Jew turns to the darkly garbed man and says, “What’s the matter with you Hasids? This isn’t the Old Country—it’s the modern world. You people are an embarrassment to the rest of us.” The man turns around and says, “Hasid? I’m Amish.” The secular Jew immediately replies, “It’s so wonderful the way you’ve held on to your traditions!”

For some reason I have warmer feelings about the Amish than the Satmar--why?

• Amish are/were dairy farmers, therefore closer to my heart
• More generally Amish do physical work, while my understanding of the Satmar is that the culture is focused on religious study. 
• Amish have been in US as long or longer than most of my ancestors while Satmar are 20th century.
• Amish are familiar, Satmar are strange.
• Amish seem to have been more withdrawn than the Satmar--to the best of my knowledge the Amish haven't used the power of numbers to seek political power, while the Satmar got their own town/city--we don't have the draft anymore so I don't know whether they'd be conscientious objectors to military service--I think the Amish were CO's. )
• I'm human, and susceptible to tribalism/othering.

Some perspectives from others and here.

 

Amish Vacations

"Amish vacations" seems like an oxymoron; dairy farmers don't get vacations. 

But the Amish have been moving into other occupations, and they still have big families, meaning someone can be in line to do the day-to-day work even of dairy farms.

So it seems that the Amish do take vacations, as shown by this Kottke post., linking to some photos and older articles.

Amish Organic Farmers and Steel-Wheeled Tractors

Washington Post has a good article on a group of Amish dairies in Iowa who are producing organic milk, but who are being undercut by what they view as illegitimate "organic milk" from large dairies.  This is a sequel to an earlier article where the Post challenged some large dairies, trying to prove by analysis of the milk and data on the operations that the cows could not be grazing as much as is required by USDA regs in order to be labeled "organic".

That's a valid challenge.  And the Amish seem eminently qualified to produce organic milk, given their religion-based resistance to technology.  It fits their "small" farms (under 100 cows, which still seems large to me).

I've followed the Amish story for a long while, ever since I served on a task force in the 1970's with the county executive director of the Lancaster County ASCS Office, who would describe the ins and outs of their relations with government programs.  Donald Kraybill has been a major source of my knowledge of the Amish, and the lines they draw of acceptable and unacceptable technology.  I still remember pictures of a horse-drawn baler.

This article was accompanied by a picture of a steel-wheeled tractor being used on an Amish farm, which would seem to show this group of Amish pushing out the boundaries of acceptable technology.  What's ironic to me is that horses fit nicely into organic agriculture--they can eat the oats which form part of an acceptable crop rotation.  The switch from horses to tractors in the Midwest from 1930 to 1955 also meant a loss of the market for oats.  So while the Amish have a valid complaint against large dairies on the one hand, on the other they're slowly acceding to the forces which undermined our organic agriculture of the 1930's.

Amish Healthcare

Megan McArdle wrote a while back on healthcare problems and solutions.  This past article
describes how the Amish handle their health care.  While they accept modern medicine, they're exempt from Obamacare and the community self-insures, apparently effectively.

Amish Dust Is Gold (for Asthma)

Two pieces in the NYTimes today on the same scientific research.

Briefly the Amish in Indiana have small dairy farms with barns near the house, the Hutterites have larger farms with bigger barns away from the housing quarters.  First exams of children from the two groups found significant differences in asthma, and in the underlying biology (too complex for me to summarize).  Experiments with dust from the two applied to mice reproduced the same differences in biology.

It's part of a recent theory--children today suffer because their environments are too sterile, while early exposure to a more varied environment can reduce asthma--but significant in that the experiment identifies the chain of biologic events at issue: which dust from which source.

Soon we may see the Amish making more by selling dust from their farms than by selling milk. :-)

I also found the cultural differences between Hutterites and Amish interesting.

Amish Businesses

I've long been fascinated with the Amish, particularly from reading Prof. Kraybill's book on them. I was on a task force in the 70's with the CED of Lancaster county, who commented on her dealings with the Amish.  IIRC they didn't participated in farm programs, at least not the production adjustment ones, but I think they did with the conservation cost-shares ones.

This is an article on a Kraybill talk, set up by this:

"Over the past few decades, Lancaster County’s Amish have undergone a “mini-Industrial Revolution,” Kraybill said. High land prices plus a population explosion limited farming opportunities for rising generations, fueling a turn to carpentry, small manufacturing and other enterprises.

Today, there are more than 2,000 Amish businesses in the Lancaster area, Kraybill said. Fewer than one-third of local Amish households still rely on farming as the primary source of income."

He describes the factors in Amish culture which have fed into their entrepreneurship.  It's a lesson to those of us who wonder about how society/culture operates--things are complex. 

The Amish, much like the Hasidic Jews, the Mormons and some Native American tribes also lead to reflection on what is the meaning of "America"--what can cover all the variety we see.

Healthcare and the Amish

Always fascinated by the Amish, who are exempted from ACA (Obamacare) because they were exempted from Social Security way back in the last century, as this article describes.

The article doesn't mention the Amish occasionally being medical tourists--i.e., traveling to Mexico for some operations, something about which I've read in the last couple years.

The Amish Make the Map

Here's a map showing counties in the US where at least 10 percent of the people speak a language other than English, and the language. 

So looking at it, you can see the French Cajuns in LA and New England, the Navajos in the Four Corners., the Portuguese in New England, Chinese in Tompkins  County, NY (Cornell University) and Massachusetts, etc.  Several counties scattered around (MT, WI, OH, NY, IA) have either German or similar languages.  At first I was thinking German immigrants, since my grandfather was part of an influx to Wisconsin in the 19th century, but then I realized the data most likely reflects the Amish/Mennonite communities.

Sikhs and Amish

Ann Althouse quotes a prof who studied the effect of the mass killing of Amish. Changed the image from wearers of strange garb to sympathetic victims.

FSA and the Amish

I was on a task force with the CED of Lancaster County some 35+ years ago.  At that time she didn't do much business with the Amish farmers, who were mostly dairy farmers and didn't believe in participating in government programs.  Thus it surprised me to read this post on the FSA blog, describing the outreach of the FSA farmer loan program in Cerro Gordo county, Iowa to the Amish farmers there.  I'm not clear whether the difference between a loan program and a production adjustment program makes a difference in acceptability, or whether it's just the passage of time which has changed their attitude.

The Amish and the Ig Nobels

The Ig Nobel prizes were awarded last, including one for this study :

In the late sixties the Canadian psychologist Laurence J. Peter advanced an apparently paradoxical principle, named since then after him, which can be summarized as follows: {\it 'Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence'}. Despite its apparent unreasonableness, such a principle would realistically act in any organization where the mechanism of promotion rewards the best members and where the mechanism at their new level in the hierarchical structure does not depend on the competence they had at the previous level, usually because the tasks of the levels are very different to each other. Here we show, by means of agent based simulations, that if the latter two features actually hold in a given model of an organization with a hierarchical structure, then not only is the Peter principle unavoidable, but also it yields in turn a significant reduction of the global efficiency of the organization. Within a game theory-like approach, we explore different promotion strategies and we find, counterintuitively, that in order to avoid such an effect the best ways for improving the efficiency of a given organization are either to promote each time an agent at random or to promote randomly the best and the worst members in terms of competence.

Where do the Amish come in?  As I understand the above, they identified this truth back in the 17th century.  The usual pattern in churches is for bishops (authority figures) to be selected by management, or maybe elected by a church body.  That leads to the Peter principle: a top programmer becomes the manager of programmers, a top analyst becomes a manager of analysts; even though neither knows anything about management.  The Amish use a different principle: they let God decide.  Or, to the secular-minded among us, they select bishops by lot.  They're one of the fastest growing religions, so it's proof the system works.

The Amish Have Pollution Problems?

I'm stunned by this NY Times article:  it seems EPA is trying to work with Amish dairy farmers in Lancaster County, PA, to alleviate problems from pollution of the Susquehanna River/Chesapeake Bay watershed by manure running into streams.

Why am I stunned?  Because I grew up on a dairy/poultry farm in the Susquehanna.  Our farming was close to Amish in methods (horses until the early 50's, then a small John Deere tractor).  From reading Prof. Kraybill on the Amish, it seems they limit their equipment to horse-drawn stuff, going just so far as to have hay balers powered by a gasoline engine on the baler.  Those limitations keep the farm size down to family size--maybe 60-70 milkers.  That was a big farm when I was growing up, but they handled manure as we did.

First, during the growing season (early May to maybe October) the cows would be on pasture 20 out of 24 hours, so little manure accumulated in the barn.  During the months they were being fed hay in the barn, maybe 22 out of 24 hours, the manure accumulated in the barn gutters, so cleaning them was a daily chore.  But the manure went into a manure spreader, which we used to spread the manure on the fields.  If the snow got too bad, we'd pile manure and have to spread it in the spring.    In all of this, I wasn't conscious of any manure getting into the Page Brook (which ran into the Chenango, which ran into the Susquehanna).  So we weren't aware of being polluters; our hearts were pure, at least in that regard.

So how are the Amish screwing up?  My guess is three-fold:  (1) we weren't aware of the possibility of manure being washed away when rain fell on frozen ground; (2) we weren't aware of the urine seeping into the water table and then into the brook (we were aware Mom's organic garden profited by being down slope from the spreader); (3) we weren't aware of  rain washing the pile manure.  In our case, the pollution was probably minimal.  But with the Amish having bigger operations, each cause could be significant.  That's why apparently EPA is pushing manure lagoons and pits.  But my impression is that the farmer empties a lagoon into a big tank spreader, too big to be pulled by horses.  Unfortunately the article doesn't describe the emptying, just the building.

Also of some interest is the fact that the article mentions, in addition to EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the NRCS (at least the Lancaster County Conservation District), and a consulting outfit.  That's lots of bureaucracy for the Amish to negotiate.

Finally, from the LCCD:

"Under Act 38, Concentrated Animal Operations (CAOs) are required to develop and implement a Nutrient Management Plan. CAOs are defined as agricultural operations where the animal density exceeds 2 animal equivalent units (AEUs) per acre of land suitable for manure application on an annualized basis." 

Seems to me that must indicate the Amish are importing feed, but maybe not.

Health Care Reform and the Religious

Snopes.com has a piece on the intersection of religion and health care reform, particularly interesting on the Amish.  PPACA ties back to existing IRS regs exempting people from Social Security and Medicare taxes under specific conditions.  Bottom line: we don't yet know which groups may qualify for PPACA exemptions.

Amish and Health Care Reform

The Amish have problems with insurance, as essentially the community self-insures.  Via Marginal Revolution, this article describes some of the complications they face, particularly as employers.  But the incidental information is interesting--who knew there was an Amish employer with over 150 employees?  And what does it do to Amish society to have an employer/employee relationship?

The Bucolic Life

Is not danger-free. See this accident in York County, PA, an ancestral home.

The Amish Head West

That's the lead from this MSNBC story--driven by the rising cost of farm land, Amish are now in Colorado.

A professor is quoted as saying the average size of their families is 7 children, meaning a doubling every 20 years. (I would have thought more.)

That means:
230,000 Amish in 2009
460,000 in 2029
1 million in 2049
2 million in 2069
4 million in 2089
8 million in 2109

Today's Amish Problems

LA Times has a story on the Amish in Indiana--many are off the farm due to high land prices and high population, pushing them into the system. Now some are laid off, and collecting unemployment.

The Amish have adapted to economic crises before. During the Depression, some men were permitted to register for driver's licenses, according to research by Nolt. That special exemption is less likely to happen this time, the professor said, because the Amish have come to view the horse and buggy as core parts of their identity.

This recession is especially brutal because the Amish factory workers became accustomed to earning annual salaries of $60,000 to $100,000, which provided for mortgages and shopping trips. A fiberglass basketball hoop hangs above a buggy in one driveway. The Wal-Mart has a hitching post. And some Amish men are as attached to their cellphones as their beards.

Prof. Kraybill has observed there's a tension between someone being the leader of an enterprise and boss of a number of employees and the self-effacement that's expected of Amish. Will be interesting to see how this works out over the years.

The Amish and the Environment

Seeking Simplicity is a blog by a mother who has moved into a former Amish home and is living mostly as they do (no electricity, wood stoves). It's partly "back to basics", but she had an interesting post here musing on the Amish and the environment. It includes the observation that there's an impact on the forests and this:

"Although we may think of the Amish as earth friendly, it is not always the case. Many whom we have met do have the belief that the land is to use –not that we should care for and cherish the gift. Thus, as we have noticed due to snow melt, piles of garbage and unsafe environmental practices litter our land."

Amish Will Take Over Furniture?

Maybe I was wrong that the Amish were destined to take over dairy farming in the U.S. This NY Times article describes their push into small business, particularly furniture.

The Amish move into the world of commerce has been more out of necessity than desire. Over the last 16 years, the Amish population in the United States — mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana — has nearly doubled, to 230,000, and the decreasing availability and increasing cost of farmland has forced many of these agrarian families, especially the younger generation, to gravitate to small business as their main source of income.

The businesses, which favor such Amish skills as furniture-making, quilting, construction work and cooking, have been remarkably successful. Despite a lack of even a high school education (the Amish leave school after the eighth grade), hundreds of Amish entrepreneurs have built profitable businesses based on the Amish values of high quality, integrity and hard work.

Prof. Kraybill outlines some of the dangers (at least for those who don't work in family-oriented workshops) for the way of life.

A side note. One of the big limits of the Internet and Google is the fact advertisements aren't captured. One of the striking ads I've seen in the last week is a full page newspaper ad for Amish mantels, complete with pictures showing bearded craftsmen finishing the wood. What it seems to be is an operation that combines a Chinese-built space heater contained inside a wood mantel so the combination looks like a wood fire in a fire place. Of course, 98 percent of the text is given over to the Amish side of the story, only in a couple places is it admitted that the guts of the product are Chinese.