Inside the
Summer Issue:

Home Page

Harry Chapin’s
“Ripple” of Influence
Grows Every Day

Jen Chapin Leads Us
On A Lushly-Written
Journey Into Her Life
In “Ready”

WHY Takes Holistic
Approach to Fight
Hunger & Poverty

DMC’s New Disc
Strikes Many Chords

Hard Rock Café
Serves Up Benefit CD
to Fight Hunger

When Howie Met Harry:
Catching Up With
Drummer Howard Fields

Performing Artist
Inspires Audiences
Through Prose

Celestial Cross-Pollination
Yields a Harry Chapin-
Dante Anthology of
Student Essays

Amish Farmers’ Co-op
Finds Innovation in
Simpler Ways

Still Wild About Harry

Behind the CD “Cause”

Do Something!

Goat Tales

Circle! Calendar

Amish Farmers’ Co-op Finds
Innovation in Simpler Ways

by Bill Hornung

As the world gets increasingly complex, often innovative solutions are touted as the next big answer to solving the social ills of unemployment, hunger, crime, poverty and generations of children facing a risky and dangerous future.

Welfare-to-work government programs spring up. Charities launch new fund-raising initiatives to help people get back on their feet. Police crackdown on juvenile delinquents. Schools embark on elaborate intervention programs to provide Internet career training programs for at-risk youth.

But there is a more basic approach that has changed little over hundreds of years in Wayne and Holmes counties in northern Ohio. The counties accept virtually no help from the Ohio’s progressive network of food banks. Unemployment is consistently below state and national averages. Crime causes few problems. The youth are provided a wealth of opportunities even though most never go beyond an eighth grade education. And computers are nonexistent in a community where residents rely on horse and buggy for transportation.

The two counties are home to the largest population of Amish in the world. The gently rolling hills are dotted with small farms that often have been owned by the same families for generations. Devoted to their religious roots and maintaining a simple but comfortable lifestyle, the Amish have quietly created a sustainable and positive community of which many anti-poverty groups dream.

But outside economic pressures are taking their toll on the two rural counties. “Back in the early 1980s, about 90 percent of our families relied on farming for their income,” said Wayne Wengerd, a prominent Amish business leader. “Today, only about 10 percent are full-time farmers.”

Wengerd is part of a 20-member board for Green Field Farms, a farmer’s cooperative that is trying to revitalize small Amish family farms. “Farming is what many families want to do, but we have been unable to compete with our horse-drawn plows against the large agriculture companies.”

Fortunately, other trends are turning things in favor of Green Field Farms. More consumers are demanding natural and organic foods – preferably from local farmers. A smaller farm also is better suited for organic crops or animals that are produced without growth hormones, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. And rising oil prices actually help local farmers in today’s world when the average food product travels 1,500 miles from the farm to the consumer’s plate.

“When we first started talking about organic farming three years ago, many in our community were skeptical,” Wengerd said. “But now I think most are convinced that it is a way to successfully return to farming.”

Green Field Farms is currently producing and selling certified organic eggs throughout Ohio. The co-op also recently signed an agreement to work with Organic Valley, the world’s largest organic milk producer. “The agreement gives our farmers a stable market to sell their milk at a very good price,” Wengerd said. “And we have option to keep some of the milk so we can produce our own brand of cheese and other dairy products in the future.”

“The Organic Valley partnership is truly a blessing. They have a real desire to help small farmers make a fair living,” Wengerd said.

That’s good news to farmers like Robert Yoder who recently looked out from his porch and said “there’s the most beautiful sight in the world.”

Yoder’s small herd of Jersey cows were peacefully walking out from the barn to freely graze on his farm’s pasture. Yoder’s operation is a typical Amish farm with about 50 acres that are organized as a small eco-system of corn fields and pastures that provide feed for a herd of 40 or 50 cows.

Unlike large factory farms, an Amish farmer is nearly self-reliant in terms of producing everything he needs to keep the farm going in a perpetual fashion.

“I think many people believe that all farms are like this,” Yoder says. “But it’s actually a rare sight in today’s world of mega farms where thousands of dairy cows are crowded into small feed lots and never see a natural grass pasture.”

The trend towards more ecologically sound and community-based farming is good for business, Wengerd said. But a farming based community is equally vital to the families and Amish culture.

“People often question me about how wise it is that our kids only go to school until they’re about 12 or 13 and then start working on the family farm or business,” Wengerd adds. “But we give the kids a purpose early on so there’s less confusion and anxiety about their future. Growing up on a farm also helps establish values about responsibility and hard work.

“The need to save our family farms is not just about producing income. Farming is an important aspect in our families because we can work side-by-side with our children to teach these life skills that are just as important as learning how to read, write and do math,” Wengerd said.

Maintaining the culture isn’t without its compromises. To sell its products broadly so it can support the farmers, the cooperative has had to deal with complicated distribution issues, retailers that require computer bar codes on packages and setting up a website.

“The lesson we’ve learned is we must stay true to our mission of helping our farmers but also remain flexible,” said Wengerd. “That’s why we are already looking beyond organic farming. We need to understand what else we can do once organic foods become mainstream, and we might not be able to compete once again.”

Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on September 7