Amish Farming Draws Rare Government Scrutiny

[wgmiller]

salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
P.S.
I do wish they would help pay for the roads though.

Boy, you're not kidding! The state just paved one of the roads near my house that was a virtual goatpath before. It is now widened with a fresh coat of blacktop and shoulders. Unfortunately, I know it won't stay this nice because of the number of farm vehicles and Amish buggies that travel it. I'm already seeing groove marks from the buggies. It's Musser Road which parallels Donegal Creek towards the headwaters which I'm sure you're familiar with.

Yeah, their buggies do more damage to a road than any conventional vehicle could ever do!

 

[jdaddy]

Are the environmental rules any different for Amish than for other people? If so, what are examples of this?

No. No they are not. The environmental rules and regulations are more stringent and more enthusiastically enforced for larger farms than smaller farms. However it has nothing to do with Amish versus English farms. I am personally and intimately aware of the differences between small and large farm environmental compliance regulations. When we reorganized our 66,000 chicken and 800 cattle farms we chose divided our entity into two separate LLC's. One for land holding and large machinery, the other for operations. Over the last ten years we have acquired 11 additional farms. We combine all land and large machinery assets into one LLC, however operations are kept at a "local" level with the original farm families continuing operations. This allows operations environmental compliance to be held to a small farm standard. If more details are needed in the differences between the two are needed I am can certainly find out. One inspection that I know that is more relaxed for small farms is waste containment system inspections. This is very problematic in my opinion, particularly in hog waste lagoons.

 

[jdaddy]

I'm already seeing groove marks from the buggies. It's Musser Road which parallels Donegal Creek towards the headwaters which I'm sure you're familiar with.

Yeah, their buggies do more damage to a road than any conventional vehicle could ever do!

That I agree with completely. Especially the "modern" Amish and Mennonites who are using tractors and mechanical farm equipment with METAL TIRES!!!!!

 

[wgmiller]

More: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/260119

 

[jdaddy]

Calvin Keene, an English farmer who is a Bart Township supervisor, has this warning for regulators: "Everybody knows you're never going to sell anything in the southern end if you're going to force it."

Last line from the above linked article. That township should be so proud of it's elected official.

 

[Brownout]

I think that 500k should be used for a much larger beast, namely, monitoring flack fluid entering the bay and these farm streams. Some local neighbors should befriend the Amish, and print some information for them from the computer.

"Green" "meetings" with "consulting firms" just rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Chaz]

Farming practices in general are the problem, not just Amish Farms. No till farming will help as would going organic. There is a much higher demand now for organic fruit and vegies than there ever has been and PA Farmers can change over and become profitable by changing over. All the grocery store now have organic products.