Topeka, Ind.: Mark Lambright will plant onions for the Amish produce auction. ‘I don’t know if I’m cut out for produce,’ he says from behind the plow in his father’s field.
(Richard Mertens)Photos (1 of 1)
Indiana’s Amish, laid off from RV factories, return to their plows
The ‘easy money’ of factory work was a mixed blessing, some say. Now, some men have a lot to learn about the traditional Amish livelihood.
By Richard Mertens | Correspondent/ May 26, 2009 edition
Correspondent Richard Mertens discusses how widespread Amish families have become in the US and the types of businesses Amish men have been involved in.
Correspondent Richard Mertens
Emma, Ind.
For John Bontrager, the easy money has run out.
Mr. Bontrager, who is Amish, worked at a factory in nearby Middlebury, Ind., building FEMA trailers. He was not unusual; more than half the Amish men in northern Indiana had factory jobs. But when the RV industry collapsed last year, he and many others lost the work that supported their families and, over the years, enabled this Amish community, the third-largest in the United States, to grow and prosper.
While some are seeking jobs at local furniture shops or in construction out of state, Bontrager has decided to return to the traditional Amish livelihood: farming.
In January, he ordered a greenhouse – 30 by 96 feet and covered with two layers of plastic. Family and neighbors helped put it up. In late winter he planted it with 7,000 strawberry plants, stuck into plastic pots stacked six high. He expects his greenhouse berries to appear a month before local field strawberries and to taste sweeter than California imports.
“I think it’s going to be a real hit,” he says, the sun pouring down on rows of young plants and two small sons making mischief at his feet.
Amish men across northern Indiana are going back to farming, driven by necessity and also by a conviction that this is their proper work. Some are growing strawberries or tomatoes in hooped greenhouses that have sprung up in the countryside. Others are raising milk goats. Many are planting large truck gardens, putting in onions or potatoes or other vegetables to sell at a produce auction that the Amish have started in order to attract wholesale buyers.
The Amish, who for religious reasons shun modern conveniences such as cars and electricity, began here as farmers more than a century ago. But as their numbers increased – Amish couples often have 10 or more children – land prices soared and farms became increasingly unattainable.
Other Amish communities have met this challenge by starting home-based industries like furnituremaking and metal fabricating.
“In just about every settlement across the country, there’s been a shift away from farming toward small businesses,” says historian Steven Nolt at Goshen College, an expert on the Amish. In Indiana, however, the Amish found ready work in factories, making recreational vehicles.
The RV industry was a mixed blessing. Its high wages enabled many young families to buy a few acres and build a home. All around Emma, a rural crossroads in northeastern Indiana, stand gleaming new houses with white vinyl siding and, often, a matching barn.
But factory jobs also brought unease. Amish men rubbed shoulders with non-Amish who swore and engaged in other un-Amish behavior. The money encouraged habits the Amish frown upon, “spending it too much on themselves, going out to dinner too much, taking long trips,” says Otto Graber, a dairy farmer from nearby Shipshewana.
Worse, factory jobs kept fathers away from their children.
For these and other reasons, many Amish see a silver lining in the RV slump. “It’s probably good for the community,” says Kenneth Otto, who works only a few days a month at his factory job. “It was really good for too long. We just took it for granted,” he says, and “It got [us] away from farming.”
The idea of going back to farming has long tugged at the Amish. Nine years ago, a group of them began a produce auction near Emma, hoping to create a market. By last year the auction had blossomed to almost 100 growers. This year, organizers expect twice that many.
“Most … say they’ve been dreaming about this ever since the produce auction started,” says LaVerne Miller, one of the founders. “But being they had a job, it was always ‘someday.’ ”
It won’t be easy. Mr. Miller and others have been holding meetings to instruct beginners in bee pollination, quality standards, and other issues. They say it’s unlikely that large numbers of Amish will suddenly make their living growing vegetables.
“It’s not all easy money,” says Perry Miller, LaVerne’s father, who grew up on a farm. “It takes hard work and determination. But it’s a pretty good thing if you put all your heart into it.”
Bontrager now spends a lot more time at home with his wife and 11 children. Like many US families, they have cut back. They’re baking their own bread, forgoing store-bought cereal, traveling less. “We’re just kind of struggling along,” he says.
He doesn’t know if the strawberries will turn out. He’d gladly work a few more years at the factory, to save up for more greenhouses. Yet he seems hopeful and confident, for now.
“In the Bible it says, ‘By the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread,’ ” he says with conviction. “It’s more the easy-money way, going to the factory job.”
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Comments
2. Olivia | 05.26.09
Mr. Mertens, could you please pass this message to Mr. Lambright? Thanks!
Dear Mr. Lambright featured in the photo,
I admire your hard work and appreciate your desire to support your family. Ditto to all the other Amish men in this story.
I also appreciate the hard work of your three plough horses. I hope the slightly longer tails of the two outside draft horses keep the flies off the stubby-tailed middle guy! 
Here’s a special request, Mr. Lambright. When you retire your horses, would you please NOT sell them at the Sugarcreek Livestock Auction in Sugarcreek, Ohio?
I realize Sugarcreek is only 265 miles from your land, Mr. Lambright, but Frog Pond Farm Draft Horse & Pony Rescue in Cambridge, Ohio, is only 40 miles further! I’m sure the Gordon family, who runs Frog Pond, would welcome any or all of your three guys with open arms.
The reason I put in this plea on their behalf is that Amish farmers are known to bring their “used-up” horses to places like Sugarcreek. My friends who have been there report the horses and other livestock are treated miserably. And, as you are undoubtedly aware, the drafts are almost always snapped up by killer buyers and sent straight to slaughter, unless a rescue group determinedly steps in first.
No horse deserves such a cruel, callous end, any more than a hard-working human deserves to be killed off when he can no longer earn a living. That’s what the vast majority of horse owners believe, anyway.
I hope your kindly face is indicative of a sensitive heart that respects your horses’ intelligence, gentleness, obedience and goodness. It’d be immoral to take advantage of those lovely qualities and betray the horses’ trust in you, wouldn’t it, Mr. Lambright? No amount of money made by selling one’s work partner to certain death–and a torturous one at that–could ever compensate for the damage such an act does to one’s soul, could it?
Please break from Amish tradition, Mr. Lambright, and do right by your gentle giants.
3. D.LADD | 05.27.09
Being a “Non-Amish” City slicker born and raised in Virginia. I have come to appreciate what the land contains. I have since moved onto a 600 acre farm and begun the long track to self reliance. I am only 27 years old and currently supply my family of 4 with more than enough meat and vegs for the year. If America returns to its roots, it will find the pride and happiness from its hard work I have just begun to recieve.
Growing up in the “Credit World” and then “Stepping Down” has opened my eyes to a far better life than I could have ever thought possible.
I would recommend to anyone to slow down and start a little garden. Enjoy it, but know its hard work. Add a new task or hobby each year, this year it was hogs and honey bees for me. Next is beef cattle and then some form of dairy animal. Continue on until we regain our knowledge so long ago lost due to Big Business and the need for more. Forget the opening up of credit Obama is pushing. Save your money and learn instead.
If the Amish accepted outsiders and my wife was willing, I would be sitting on the horse drawn plow instead.
God Bless and God Speed.
4. Farmgirl | 05.27.09
I think that whatever Mr. Lambright does with his animals is certainly up to him and if he chooses to sell them at Sugar Creek or the Shipshewana Auction he should not feel guilty about either choice. Animals are respected on the farm, that’s what gets the work done and that’s what feeds our nation. Without our animals we could not do survive as humans, but they are animals, created for us by God. Olivia, I certainly hope that you have never eaten a hamburger, chicken breast, or steak in your life. That would mean that you have aided in sending some poor animal to meet it’s demise.
Mis-treatment of animals does occur in this world and it is a shame when you hear about them being tortured or violently mis-treated, but this isn’t the same situation. I wish you would take the same attitude and apply it to all the children in this world that are abused and violated, the world would be a better place for it.
5. nancy | 05.30.09
i agree with OLIVIA on the horse problem. i am what you would call a conservative MENNONITE……..yes, i have electricity and a phone too!!!!! we all need to recognize what good fortunes we have when we work with our friends, the animals. our farm has many horses and cows, so we would not even think of putting one down due to old age or illness (if the illness could be treated.) my sisters and brothers all ride the animals out to the fields to work. keep up the work that you are doing OLIVIA.
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1. R. Lee | 05.26.09
This article is a good example of why I like this publication so much.
Amish people interest me. I think many of us can learn a great deal from them. Seems to me that we’ve removed ourselves too far from the roots we have in the soil of this country. As a country, we can stand to lose a few pounds working in the fields, and live a healthier lifestyle by eating what we grow. Problem is, corporations have taken over most of the production and distribution.
I’d sure like to have a small basket of those strawberries