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Harvesting corn on an Amish dairy farm in Lancaster County, PA. Under their religious rules, they can’t use motorized vehicles, but stationary or hauled motors are allowed. Their milk is certified organic, and marketed under the Organic Valley brand. All inputs are similar to their non-Amish organic-farming neighbors. Their neighbor uses a $1M GPS-driven combine harvester system to cut 12 rows at at time, six acres per hour, while the the Amish family harvests one row at a time, four acres per day. They use a mule-drawn wagon to cut the corn, and three others to ferry the crop back to the chopper and silo. The Amish process uses a hybrid of 19th Century techniques with lots of extended family labor, to get yields comparable to industrial-scale farming. Lancaster County has the most productive non-irrigated farmland in the U.S.

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STNMTZ_20210922_3001.TIF
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©2021 George Steinmetz
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Feed the Planet
Harvesting corn on an Amish dairy farm in Lancaster County, PA. Under their religious rules, they can’t use motorized vehicles, but stationary or hauled motors are allowed. Their milk is certified organic, and marketed under the Organic Valley brand. All inputs are similar to their non-Amish organic-farming neighbors. Their neighbor uses a $1M GPS-driven combine harvester system to cut 12 rows at at time, six acres per hour, while the the Amish family harvests one row at a time, four acres per day. They use a mule-drawn wagon to cut the corn, and three others to ferry the crop back to the chopper and silo. The Amish process uses a hybrid of 19th Century techniques with lots of extended family labor, to get yields comparable to industrial-scale farming. Lancaster County has the most productive non-irrigated farmland in the U.S.

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