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Plain Community in Organic Agriculture
1 Playsin 1 day
The Amish and Mennonite communities have had an outsized impact on agriculture in the midwest– specifically in organic dairy and the popularization of the produce auction. In this episode Kate explores why the organic dairy has come to rely on small Amish dairy farms, and how produce auctions have become fixtures of midwestern produce sales in the last few decades.
The Taproot Podcast is an initiative of the Midwest Transition to Organic Partnership Program, a project funded by the USDA National Organic Program to support transitioning and organic producers with mentorship and technical assistance and to grow the greater organic community. Learn more at organictransition.org.
Guest Bios
Phil Forbes is a highly experienced leader in regenerative agriculture and organic dairy supply chain management based in Kalona, Iowa. He currently holds multiple senior leadership roles, including Executive Director of the Kalona Regenerative Network and Director of the Small Farm Program for Kalona Farms and Kalona SuperNatural. Phil has been involved in organic and regenerative agriculture for the past 35 years in a diverse array of areas, to include medicinal herbs, market gardening, beef cattle, bison, pastured eggs, custom grazing, organic dairy, and sheep.
Sheldon Raber is the manager of the Arthur Produce Auction in Arthur, IL and a member of the Mennonite community in the Arthur area. He is also the owner of ABC Shop in Arthur, a one-stop-shop for books, in-season produce, jigsaw puzzles, and more.
Helpful Links
- Kalona Supernatural
- Performing Amish Agrarianism: Negotiating Tradition in the Maintenance of Pennsylvania Dairy Farms by Nicole Welk-Joerger
- The Success of Plain People’s Produce Auctions and Partnership with Missouri Extension by James Quinn
Credits
This work was funded and supported by the USDA National Organic Program, Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP)
Produced by Kate Cowie-Haskell
Podcast art by Geri Shonka
Music:
- Ghost Solos by Lucas Gonze, from the Free Music Archive
- Chasin It by Jason Shaw, from the Free Music Archive
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Midwestern Agriculture and Plain Communities
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Taproot Project. My name is Kate. When I was originally planning this podcast series, I spoke to people in agriculture across the Midwest about what stories they felt needed to be told about Midwestern agriculture.
00:00:15
Speaker
And what I heard back more than anything else was, we need to talk about the role of the plain community. Plain here, P-L-A-I-N, is the preferred umbrella term for Christian groups like the Amish, the Hutterites, and Old Order Mennonites that generally live in tight-knit communities separate from the modern world.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'll admit that I was surprised so many people pointed me towards an episode about plain people in Midwestern agriculture. Could these small separatist communities truly be impacting the region's agriculture so greatly?
Impact of Plain Communities on Organic Dairy and Produce
00:00:47
Speaker
Spoiler alert, yes, they can. In this episode, we will explore two areas of Midwestern agriculture that have really been shaped by the Plain community, organic dairy and produce auctions.
00:00:59
Speaker
Let's cover some basics before we get into the episode. First, Mennonites and Amish are not the same. They share the same historical roots in the Anabaptist faith tradition, and they agree on basic Christian doctrine, but they have different interpretations about how to live out their faith, with Amish communities generally embracing more of a separatist lifestyle.
00:01:21
Speaker
The plain communities are also incredibly diverse in their belief structures. The Amish, for example, have no central church government, so each community is organized around a church and develops its own set of rules that guides a good Amish life.
00:01:37
Speaker
This set of behavioral rules, called an Ordnung, provides group identity and can vary a lot between communities. Okay, let's get into the episode.
Theological and Practical Roots of Agrarian Lifestyle
00:01:58
Speaker
Agriculture is embedded in the plain way of life. Their commitment to old world farming methods has turned them into agricultural icons, praised by writers like Wendell Berry and often looked to as the example of what environmentally friendly agrarianism looks like.
00:02:16
Speaker
This commitment to agrarianism is both theological and practical. Plain people are generally Anabaptists, which is a Christian faith stream stemming back to the 1500s, and Anabaptist theology includes a responsibility to be stewards of the land.
00:02:32
Speaker
But the agrarian lifestyle is also, ultimately, about maintaining the family unit and supporting a sense of social and economic independence. Living off of the land is aligned with their faith and it allows family members to work alongside each other and maintain a business with minimal exposure to the outside world.
00:02:53
Speaker
Dairy farming, in particular, has been especially important to that sense of independence because it offers year-round income to the family business. And despite challenges to the dairy industry and massive consolidation, plain farmers are still responsible for a huge portion of the U.S. milk supply.
00:03:10
Speaker
For example, in Wisconsin, more than half of the dairy farms are owned by old order Mennonite and Amish
Influence on Organic Dairy Industry
00:03:18
Speaker
farmers. These are small, family-owned operations, usually under 35 cows, and the vast majority of them are certified or practicing organic.
00:03:28
Speaker
These farms are so important to the milk supply chain that the organic dairy industry has been shaped around these small family operations. To learn more, I spoke with Phil Forbes.
00:03:39
Speaker
Phil is the Senior Director of Supply Chain at Kelowna Supernatural, an organic milk brand based in Kelowna, Iowa. He is not a member of the Plain community himself, but he has worked closely with Amish farmers for over 20 years.
00:03:54
Speaker
Okay, so Coloma Supernatural is a mid-tier organic dairy brand, and its claim to fame is minimally processed and focused on the plain communities.
00:04:06
Speaker
So for the brand itself, I would say, 90%, 95% of the raw milk that comes into to be processed comes from the plain community in Iowa.
Shift Towards Organic Farming Methods
00:04:21
Speaker
in Iowa and a couple farms in northern Missouri. Many Plain communities use organic methods. This isn't true across the board, but it is especially true in Iowa.
00:04:35
Speaker
I asked Phil about how he's seen the Amish community impact organic dairy. um So, historically the plain community coming over from europe they were real farmers obviously probably everybody kind of was when people came over and initially but they've really stuck to farming as a way of life uh also building it depends on where they're at and to your point all these communities mennonite and amish
00:05:07
Speaker
are all different. Each community creates, you know, they have a framework of kind of how they're going to be, but then how the community is going to agree to allow certain practices to proceed as being a part of how they can cohere together.
00:05:29
Speaker
So with that, they've observed the effects of conventional ag and have in each community i've noticed this i've just been in so many of them they've just noticed the destructiveness without being hyper sophisticated as to why they wouldn't be able to give you the scientific reasons but they would be able to give you the empirical observations of the destructiveness of conventional ag with spraying and, you know, all the different types of seeds. So they have just naturally moved more to the organic space.
00:06:15
Speaker
And so I've had, you know, Amish producers and their wives would tell me, yeah, we want to be, for instance, grass-fed organic because we feel like that's really how the earth should be treated.
00:06:27
Speaker
And I, think really because they don't talk about the price even though they're going to get paid more they're not talking about that they're talking about their ah their feelings of responsibility for what they should be doing while they live here on this earth and so it's just for where organic um especially organic dairy but also produce um chickens eggs organic eggs A lot of that comes from the Plain community, a lot.
00:07:01
Speaker
And i would say, we'll just use the organic dairy industry. Where is the growth coming from? Well, you're it's coming from two ways.
00:07:13
Speaker
Very large non-Amish ah organic dairies, very large, 2,000 to 3,000 cows, cows. or Amish dairies, Amish farms, milking 30 cows, 40 cows.
00:07:33
Speaker
So there's a lot of growth for the small farm in the Amish community. And then there's growth, less people, but bigger spaces, more cows.
00:07:44
Speaker
not i would call The Amish call them the English. So the Amish would say that. They would call me English. And it's because I speak English and their first language is Pennsylvania Dutch.
00:07:59
Speaker
The English farmers are usually very very large. The English farmers cannot compete with the small Amish producers because the English farmers want trucks, they have electricity, you want more things, whereas the Amish are the plain folks and they don't have electricity.
00:08:23
Speaker
um They have cut their costs to the bone. There's a lot of things they don't do based on their religious perspective and culture. Phil is talking here about how much more expensive it is to run a large, quote, English dairy business. But I was stuck on how the small family farms could possibly compete with larger tech savvy dairies.
00:08:46
Speaker
So can you... help me understand that you just mentioned that that there's a big difference between like what a you know large dairy could produce that is English and using all of this technology that maybe the small Amish farmer is not. how How are these smaller Amish or Mennonite farms able to stay in business?
Viability of Small Farms and Corporate Support
00:09:10
Speaker
Is that where Kelowna comes in or like that yes Yes. So claim to fame to Kelowna, but I would say with Horizon and um almost all of the major dairy procurers, milk companies realize is that they need both types of farms.
00:09:34
Speaker
They need to pick up a small farm. because that's where the that's where the milk's at. That's where a lot of the growth is. But they also need to pick up the big farm because in many ways, the big farm will subsidize picking up the small farm.
00:09:51
Speaker
And it's all logistics. It's all cost of the haul. It's usually the pricing to both farms are sometimes a little bit different, but very similar.
00:10:05
Speaker
However, to go pick up a big farm, you can back a a tanker is what it's called. Whenever you're driving down the road and you see the cylinder trailers being pulled by these big tractor trailers, tractors, um that's usually, there is milk in there or orange juice or olive oil, but usually milk.
00:10:29
Speaker
And those will show up. let's say to a big farm and load entire tanker right there because they have enough cows and enough milk to load that tanker. That's a very efficient farm to go get, to take to the plant, very efficient. Now, if you're going to pick up small Amish dairies, you might have to pick up 20 or 25 small farms.
00:10:53
Speaker
There's a cost to drive to these farms, to back in, to load the milk. Usually it's not a lot of milk. just the holler getting out of the truck costs money.
00:11:05
Speaker
He's being paid a certain way. So it's way more costly to go pick up these small farms. However, you need to because that's where the milk's at, a lot of milk.
00:11:16
Speaker
So um the milk companies, Kelowna, as it a good example, pick up, we've used it as a marketing approach.
00:11:29
Speaker
hey, we're picking up small farms and the customer that buys our product loves that, absolutely loves that. Oh, let's let's support the small farm by buying Kelowna. Well, Horizon and Organic Valley do it too, but they also pick up very large farms.
00:11:47
Speaker
um I would say, generally speaking, that the organic space
00:11:56
Speaker
and organic market has allowed for the small farmer to have an opportunity. Otherwise, it's only going to push a very small few into the to the large farm structure, which almost requires investors,
00:12:16
Speaker
um managers, employees, human resource departments. I mean, these are these are major operations. I've been on a 10,000 Cal dairy in New Mexico.
00:12:31
Speaker
That's a small city. I mean, there's towns in Iowa that are 25 people. So you go to these dairies and it's, just I mean, they have the same problems as a small city. that Where's the wastewater going? How are we getting rid of the manure?
00:12:45
Speaker
Where's the water? uh as opposed to going on and i've done this many times going on to a small little amish dairy that's hand milking 10 cows i've done that many times I also learned in my research that Amish communities will use a trustee system.
Community Support Systems in Amish Farms
00:13:04
Speaker
If a farm business is failing, three trustees will be appointed to assist the business. The church appoints one trustee, the farmer chooses another, and then those two trustees elect the third.
00:13:16
Speaker
Together, these three people can help the farmer get back on track. It's a built-in social safety net that really drives home how businesses are not just individual ventures, but community projects.
00:13:28
Speaker
And this is also where farming interacts with the Ordnung, the community's behavioral standards. Agricultural technology and food safety regulations are changing all the time, and communities must decide what to adapt and what to reject.
00:13:43
Speaker
For example, when Grade A fluid milk regulations started to require bulk refrigerated milk tanks, Amish communities were at a crossroads. Some adapted to the new regulations, and some created partnerships with cheese plants that would accept grade B milk.
00:14:00
Speaker
Within Kelowna or the farms that you work with, how do you see decisions being made and how often are people in the communities revisiting certain parts of agricultural practices and making decisions about how to stay updated or or not?
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah. um So I could talk about that for Kelowna and then also across Indiana, Ohio, all of them. um All the communities, like I said, are self-contained. So they're usually led by a couple of leaders um who are chosen by lot, I believe.
00:14:39
Speaker
So that's the generally how the context is. Now how they change is over time, for instance, um even though it's honestly really impressive how they resist the outer world all around them, um they do modify.
00:15:00
Speaker
and I think they are pragmatic. in that if we're going to survive in this world there are some things that have to change and then there's some things that will not change because they say and i think rightly so if we let that thing change it's a domino that won't stop and we will all fall apart as a community in our approach to life so so it will change very slowly
00:15:33
Speaker
but it does. And I think a lot of it is that the reason the change happens is that the community realizes for them to survive in the area that they're in, they do need to change this thing. For instance, having a cell phone and being able to respond to buying and selling, if that's what they're into,
00:16:00
Speaker
more than having a phone in a phone shack somewhere else and and visiting the phone shack once a day, those kind of pressures lead to a change in the community structure.
00:16:16
Speaker
Thank you so much to Phil for sharing his observations from working with Amish dairy farmers.
00:16:35
Speaker
The Plain community has shaped the growth and popularization of another key piece of Midwestern agriculture.
Role and Benefits of Produce Auctions
00:16:44
Speaker
the produce auction The produce auction is a business model designed to support local farmers. On regularly scheduled auction days, farmers will bring their produce in bulk to the auction space.
00:16:57
Speaker
Anyone from the public can come to buy, but the auction mainly serves grocers or other food retailers looking to resell the produce. As a buyer, you can walk among the rows of produce pallets and place bids.
00:17:09
Speaker
The highest bidder takes their produce home, and the auction business typically earns an 8-12% commission on the sales. The Arthur Produce Auction in Arthur, Illinois is one of the largest auctions in the state.
00:17:22
Speaker
The produce sold there is grown within a 20-mile radius of Arthur, a predominantly Amish and Mennonite community. I spoke with Sheldon Raber, the manager at the Arthur Produce Auction.
00:17:33
Speaker
so I'm Sheldon Raber. I'm the manager at the Arthur Productions Auctions, and basically I coordinate what comes, product coming in, what we know is coming in, and also coordinate with buyers that are coming in to buy.
00:17:45
Speaker
What is your connection to the Plain community? So I am a member of a Mennonite church there in Arthur. So I'm part of the Plain community as well. As I say, we're not that much different than the Amish. The main difference would be the Amish would drive horse and buggies and we do drive cars and and talk on the phone with me. Right.
00:18:03
Speaker
And for the uninitiated, what is a produce auction? Walk me through it. Like I'm there for the first time. What would I see?
00:18:14
Speaker
So our farmers, our growers grow, most of them grow produce specifically for the produce auction. Now, some of them may also have other markets, but they would grow the fresh produce, pack it.
00:18:27
Speaker
They bring it into the auction building. So basically the auction building is simply a parking a lot with a roof over top of it, if you will. um There's certain parts of it that we have sealed up, but a lot of it is actually just open building. And we are strictly a consignment auction where we are physically, we line that produce up in rows by pallets, whatever. And we physically walk up and down those roads and auction off the produce to the highest bidder.
00:18:56
Speaker
And yeah, a lot of it is, like I say, it's case slots pal lots, pallet lots. Produce auctions offer a number of benefits to local farmers. Built-in marketing, frequent sale events, solid demand, guaranteed payment, and sales close to home. They're often the most prominent business in the community. Larger produce auctions can have annual sales exceeding $3 million. dollars Can you say more about who generally your growers are and who is buying through the auction? Sure.
00:19:29
Speaker
So our growers are mostly from the Amish Mennonite community. so our particular auctions, Arthur, Illinois, edit it and the auction was actually pretty much started by the art the Amish community there in Arthur. So there's some Mennonites as well as growers. There are some other people as well, but predominantly it is the plain people's community.
00:19:51
Speaker
that is growing produce, mostly families that they're doing a family, small family farm. um And then our our buyers, predominantly our stores that are um buying to resell the produce.
00:20:10
Speaker
Some um marketers, i would say I'd say stores, some of them are, maybe they just have an open air farm stand or where they're buying and reselling. some of our growers or Some of our buyers are also farmers that actually grow some, but then they buy some either other product or buy a product to supplement what they're already doing.
00:20:31
Speaker
Now, we are also open to the public. Anyone may come in and buy. and so we also have some homeowners or, yeah ladies that like to can vegetables that will just come in and buy cases so they can go home and can.
00:20:47
Speaker
So what feels really interesting to me about the auction model is that you mentioned having families who maybe are just like growing out of their garden, but because it's being kind of aggregated with these other growers, there is suddenly a market for them. Correct.
00:21:05
Speaker
um The core group of growers that make the auction work are actually growing it as a livelihood. so they are growing acreage of crops or acreage or greenhouses, folded that yeah they're doing this for a living.
00:21:22
Speaker
But it's still a great family job, if you will, to have teenagers involved in doing this. yeah It's a job, and it's an ag job, that yeah not um like most other ag jobs, that children can be involved with it and help actually help to do some of this. Now, having said that, there is also, like you mentioned,
00:21:43
Speaker
I have a number of growers that maybe have an extra quarter or half acre of ground that they grow a small crop in there that, yes, it would be really hard for them to find a market or to make it feasible to market that.
00:21:58
Speaker
But because we already have the auction going, that quarter or half acre can very well fit into what we're already doing. And they have a wonderful market established for them. Produce auctions have existed in the U.S. s for over 200 years, but the plain community stewarded them into the economic cornerstone they are today.
00:22:16
Speaker
Auctions centered in the Amish and Mennonite communities began in the 1980s in Pennsylvania, spurred in part by declining demand for tobacco. Amish tobacco farmers switched into produce, and the produce auction became a way to support these farmers and promote agrarianism within the community.
00:22:35
Speaker
The model quickly gained popularity among other Plain communities.
History and Ownership of Produce Auctions
00:22:40
Speaker
In 2019, there were over 70 produce auctions in the United States. The produce grown for these auctions represents a significant portion of fresh vegetable production in the country.
00:22:51
Speaker
For example, in Missouri, Plain People's produce auctions accounted for 26% of the state's market share of fresh vegetables in 2017. why Why did the produce auction get started? Can you tell me about how how it came to be and kind of what problem it was solving for?
00:23:11
Speaker
Right. So the vision of the auction, it's it's basically for the people that want, farmers, people, it wasn't all farmers, that had a vision for maintaining ag and love of farming, growing things, and pretty much for the so for the good of the community as well as the good of those that wanted it to stay in an ag lifestyle and an ag agriculture job.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's definitely, a ah if you've worked with enough farmers, you know that that passion that comes out and those that are involved in agriculture want to stay there. And just that this auction is more of a ah community building support to the agriculture community, those that want to be involved in the ag.
00:24:01
Speaker
Was that because the community was seeing more people leaving agriculture? Like, was it becoming less and ah viable for folks? some of both in the Arthur community, especially we are very, there's a lot of woodworking.
00:24:16
Speaker
um We actually our the agriculture, the farmers are very, are actually a small percentage as compared to only a couple of generations ago where there was a lot more agriculture. So yes, some of that was definitely the, there were people leaving agriculture they wanted to make it feasible to stay in it.
00:24:38
Speaker
And, It wasn't feasible on small acreage to be profitable outside of something like produce. These auctions are specifically designed to benefit the hyperlocal community.
00:24:52
Speaker
Many produce auctions are organized as grower-owned LLCs or corporations owned by members of the community. You can see in this model how important it is for the Plain community to one, support its businesses, but also specifically support and protect a culture of agrarianism within the community.
00:25:11
Speaker
I asked Sheldon about the business model for the Arthur Produce Auction. The auction company itself is a shareholder corporation. And yeah, some of the ones that grow produce, own some shares when it started, there was a number of businessmen in the community that saw the value for families in the community to have this auction company.
00:25:36
Speaker
that were willing to buy the shares to finance the building and the land to start with. And a number of them still own some shares there. That has changed somewhat over time to where more and more more of those shares are being owned by the people that are doing the farming themselves.
00:25:53
Speaker
but But yeah, it definitely was a vision of some of the businessmen in the community that really got the auction started. That piece of it is really interesting me that it was seen by the community as something that needed to happen. It wasn't a group of farmers or grocers who got it started. It was people who maybe didn't have direct interest in the auction. Is that correct? I would say so, yes. the yeah the And by and large, no matter where you go, whether you're at Arthur, or any pur produce auction, any community, you will find that most of them are in plain communities, Amish and Mennonite communities. and they're some type of community owned company, if you will. So, and I say that still our our vision is still to make it something that's worthwhile for the community to do something that's profitable for the growers. So the auction company itself does not make a lot of profit.
00:26:49
Speaker
The owning the shares of the company is not a profit making, they get a little profit, but it's not, there'd be a lot better places to invest their money. Right.
Anabaptist Beliefs and Community Cooperation
00:27:01
Speaker
why Why do you think produce auctions are so specific to the plain community?
00:27:07
Speaker
The easy answer is because it is a community thing and it is the plain communities tend to be very tight-knit communities to begin with, partly because of their church structure and how we work together as a church community and that's based on the Bible and so that Nebby follows into it that in order for the produce auctions to work the way we work them, it has to be a willingness to work together or it never works. so yeah If every grower worked independently, they wouldn't work well together as a group of the auctions.
00:27:47
Speaker
And here I fumbled my way through a question about what it is in the Anabaptist belief system and church structure that encourages cooperation within the community, which Sheldon graciously answered.
00:28:00
Speaker
So I'll try to do this without getting too deep. And without and you're putting me on the spot here, maybe. but ah I welcome you getting too deep, too. Yeah. So so the Amazian Mennonite community, or the broader term would be Anabaptist group.
00:28:14
Speaker
So the the Anabaptist group, one of the core beliefs of Anabaptism compared to Protestantism, if I can generalize here.
00:28:26
Speaker
And this goes back to the 1500s and the beginning of Anabaptism. But the Anabaptists believed that the Bible clearly teaches that salvation through Christ is not only through Christ, but it also directly relates to how a man relates to his brother.
00:28:43
Speaker
And so love for brotherhood and fellowship within the community is an important part of obeying the Bible and following Jesus Christ. And so that translates, and then the Anabaptists would teach, and we believe that strongly, that not only does it affect our spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ, it translates into everyday living.
00:29:08
Speaker
And so how we live in everyday life, how we relate to each other in everyday life, is directly affected by what we believe the Bible teaches us. And so we we that spills into or that controls business principles, if you will. And so that's why I say it's ah that principle is part of what keeps a community business organization that makes it work. Thank you. That was actually, that was very clear and succinct. It seems like you're practiced at that.
00:29:39
Speaker
Do you remember, so have you always kind of been in food and ag or is this kind of a recent thing for you Can you tell me about the, maybe like the first time you remember um realizing that you wanted to be involved in in the ag world?
00:29:55
Speaker
So the long answer is, yeah, I've always had interest in ag. So um first job I had while I was still in school, part-time.
00:30:07
Speaker
was actually working on dairy and turkey farm. So probably, I'm not sure if I would have stayed with that dairy farming would have won out. But anyway, I've always had interest. I've done several ag-related things.
00:30:19
Speaker
I love what I do. I've always sold. It really hasn't changed that much. I love working retail, working with people, filling people's needs. So I'd still prefer getting out there and selling produce to people rather than growing it.
00:30:33
Speaker
We enjoy growing it as well too, but.
00:30:43
Speaker
Thank you to Sheldon for sharing about his life and livelihood.
Credits and Taproot Project Information
00:30:47
Speaker
This episode would not have been possible without the Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies, specifically the research of Nicole Welk-Yorger and James Quinn.
00:30:57
Speaker
Their research is linked in the show notes. The Taproot Project is produced by me, Kate Howie-Haskell. Music in this episode includes Chasin' It by Jason Shaw and Ghost Solos by Lucas Gonza.
00:31:10
Speaker
The Taproot Project is an initiative of the Midwest Transition to Organic Partnership Program, a project funded by the USDA National Organic Program to support transitioning and organic producers with mentorship and technical assistance and to grow the greater organic community.
00:31:26
Speaker
Learn more at organictransition.org.