When people think of the Amish, they think of plain-clothed people, horses and buggies, and idyllic farms. While this picture is largely true, here in rural Northwest Ohio, Amish farmers in partnership with JBS Foods, the world’s largest beef producer, are operating large factory farms. The result? Polluted waterways and land. What follows is a feature story on this issue published by Circle of Blue.
Excerpted from Amish Farmers’ Partnership With Beef Giant Produces Manure Mess by Keith Schneider
Edon, Ohio — For 60 years, this one stoplight Ohio town has been known as a place where time appears to stand still. With more than 400 Amish residents settled in and around the rural community that straddles the Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan state lines, it is common to see large families traveling by horse-drawn black buggies to and from farms where they milk dairy cows and grow corn.
Adhering to a strict religious doctrine that resists new technology, Amish farmers here spent decades largely eschewing industrial farming practices that have become common around the United States.
But that bucolic tableau of plain people earnestly cultivating the rich soil where three states meet has ceased to exist, splintered by an industrial farm alliance between one of the area’s leading Amish farming families and JBS Foods, the world’s largest beef producer. Over the last two years, JBS has forged a partnership to establish a mammoth vertically integrated concentrated cattle feeding operation that is confining more than 100,000 male calves and steers in large concrete, steel, and vinyl-covered feeding barns, and generating thousands of tons of solid manure each day.
Prompted by persistent complaints of odor and contamination, regulators from the Ohio Agriculture Department and the state Environmental Protection Agency investigated earlier this year and cited nine farms for manure mismanagement, and issued fines to three farms for failing to secure proper operating permits.
The cited farms, most owned by the Schmucker family, are close to each other in Williams County, Ohio. Inspectors from the two state agencies found uncontained manure running off big waste piles and out of barns, and draining into streams and wetlands. Inspectors took water samples that contained high concentrations of nitrogen ammonia, a contaminant of manure.
The state findings were consistent with those observed by area residents who’ve watched as Amish farmers piled manure in huge mounds, spread it on farm fields as fertilizer, and taken their own water samples that confirmed it polluted streams, lakes, and the St. Joseph River.
The widespread contamination caused a deepening schism with the community, which was unprepared for such immense agricultural industrialization and the subsequent environmental contamination.
Neither Noah Schmucker Jr., the leader of the Amish farm community, nor JBS executives agreed to be interviewed for this report. Executives of Wagler and Associates, an Indiana construction company heavily involved in building the feeding barns, declined to be interviewed.
When asked about the concerns, Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Brian Baldridge said the agency would continue to “engage with all property owners to ensure they are following Ohio laws and rules.”
What’s unfolded around this farming town of 800 residents in the far northwestern corner of Ohio is the agricultural equivalent of what occurred during the fracking boom in Williston, North Dakota in the late 2000s. Powered by new technology, vastly different production practices, and access to huge sums of capital, a new beef production industry swept into a region unaccustomed and unprepared for such immense agricultural industrialization, or its environmental contamination.
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Just as in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Missouri and other states that support large industrialized livestock and poultry sectors, concentrated feeding operations are major polluters. Water samples collected by the Steuben County Lakes Council and the Williams County Alliance, two environmental groups, show persistently high concentrations of nitrates, phosphorus, and dangerous E-coli bacteria in streams and lakes in the region that encompass the St. Joseph River watershed. The river serves Fort Wayne with its drinking water, and drains into the Maumee River, the primary source of the pollutants that cause a mammoth annual toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie. The groups also tracked the contamination upstream headwaters of Fish Creek and Black Creek. Both flow through the Amish cattle farms.
The situation outrages Sandy Bihn, executive director of Lake Erie Waterkeeper, who has worked for decades on regional, national, and binational groups to cure the lake’s annual toxic bloom.
“How is it possible to let 100,000 animals, and all the nitrates and phosphorus that they produce, come into the watershed that we’re investing millions and millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars to protect?” Bihn said. “This just shows how meat and JBS are able to control the system.”
While the buggies, beards, and plain dress still help to identify Amish farms in Williams County and the two neighboring counties, there is nothing characteristically Amish about the vertically integrated, industrial scale, scientifically advanced calf and cattle production system that has quickly evolved here.
The financial advantage is plain for the Schmuckers and the other Amish farmers. The most labor intensive aspect of the Amish cattle operation is feeding and caring for calves. Amish families are large. There are plenty of hands available for the work. Latino laborers also are employed to help with animal care and operate the skidders that push manure out of the barns. Judging by the number of new homes, new cattle confinement facilities, and the prices Amish are paying for farmland – $14,000 to $20,000 an acre, according to county records –business is lucrative.
….The civic confrontation between the Amish and English communities started in December 2023 when Noah Schmucker and Wagler and Associates sought a permit to build a $10 million feeding facility for 8,000 calves and cattle in Steuben County. It was the first time the scale of the operation and JBS’s involvement was publicly revealed. Schmucker baldly stated at the hearing that if the county refused the permit he would just build smaller feeding barns that evaded county and state permitting requirements. Ohio does not require a permit unless a barn houses over 1,000 animals. Indiana’s limit is 300.
Hundreds of residents, many of them owners of lakeside homes, protested both options, fearing water pollution from manure. The county rejected the permit, prompting Schmucker to proceed with subdividing land and construction.
Evidence of the industry’s presence, and its profitability, is everywhere now around Edon. Dozens of big concrete, steel, and vinyl cattle feeding barns have already been built, each costing $130,000 or more, and many others are under construction. Trucks hauling calves and cattle crowd the highways and the narrow dirt farm-to-market roads. New Amish homes are under construction. Manure piles rest like sleeping beasts beside confinement barns. Trucks loaded with manure head for dumping sites. The entire region’s scent is an invisible and noxious veil of cattle wastes.
Following persistent complaints of from residents of pollution and odor state environmental and agriculture authorities in the three states inspected many of the Amish farms. Michigan authorities directed a calf feeding operation to halt the flow of manure draining into a stream that fed a nearby lake. Inspectors from Indiana’s Agriculture Department inspected a Steuben County farm and found that it was in compliance with state rules.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency cited nine Amish farms for violations of manure management regulations in August and set a September 1 deadline for fixing them that the farms met. Ohio authorities discovered several feeding sites where the number of cattle exceeded 1,000 animals, and the farms have since some into compliance. The state also ordered the largest mounds of manure, some towering two and three stories tall, to be removed.
The Ohio Agriculture Department issued $20,000 in fines to three Amish farms for failing to acquire the proper state permits.
Ohio’s action reflects the limited reach of state environmental law to control agricultural contamination. Though modest, the state’s enforcement is the most aggressive against farm pollution since 1999, when Ohio cited an egg farm for fouling water with chicken litter.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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This whole article makes a good case for humankind to move towards vegetarian or vegan diets. The disgusting pollution caused by this type of factory farming, the cruelty towards the animals and the terrible working conditions for the employees of these places should make people think twice before eating a hamburger. Not to mention the obscene profits made by this type of business.
Oh, and that the Amish are taking part in this ungodly business reminds me of a news article some years back which reported that young Amish men in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, were found to be selling illegal drugs. The allure of money was stronger than their religion, similar to what these Amish are doing now in Ohio.
That’s really disgusting. I winder what will happen healthwise in the area if the Trump administration dismantles a lot of safety regulations. I know these are state inspections and rules, but still…..if the federal government stops doing inspections, state agencies will be truly overwhelmed.
Amish country is familiar territory for me Bruce. My Nephew owns land near Edon. He is sort of an honorary Amish man, doing for Amish neighbors what religion prohibits, and sharing quite a few beers with them. I enjoy talking on the phone with his Amish friends. They tend to be thoughtful, well read, and intellectual in spite of having only eight years of formal education. They have phones although in some jurisdictions, they are not allowed in the home, but kept in a phone booth of sorts. My Nephew has set up solar panels to charge phones, C-Pap machines, and lights for the buggies. I had not heard of the CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) around Edon, although concentrated hog feeding has been a source of complaints around Bryan for some time. One Amish friend sold his Edon area acres to an agent a couple years ago for $5000 an acre. If $14,000 an acre is anywhere near accurate, he must be grieving the sale. CAFOs generate so much money they destroy not only the environment but distort the value of agricultural land. Nitrate contamination from CAFOs is so persistent that some enormously valuable land in Banning, CA is indefinitely unusable thanks to contaminination from decades old CAFO cattle feeding operations. Perhaps Ohio’s rainy climate would clean contamination up quicker but more water also means it gets flushed downstream farther and faster. It’s not far fetched that it will eventually impact the water in places like Ney or Defiance as the runoff flushes downstream. My conversations with Amish men reveals concern with chemicals in the environment and the health of the soil, but they conveniently diminish the impact of anything producing more income, like dessicating cereal crops with Roundup. The axiom of “follow the money” applies even to the Amish, their religion, and their lifestyle.
Perhaps this is a poor analogy, but as I read this, I found myself thinking about the casinos that Native Americans opened in their ancestral lands–or of how some nations sold cigarettes and other items online, avoiding state and federal taxes.
Although I cannot see myself living their way of life or embracing their religious beliefs, I have long had respect for the Amish for, among other things, their strong anti-war commitment. So it was disturbing for me to read that some in the community are “selling out,” especially in a way that contributes to a problem they hadn’t contributed to before.
One irony is that people like the Schmuckers are contributing to the destruction of the Amish way of life in another way. As I understand it, an Amish father is expected to give his son land when he marries. Arrangements like the Schmuckers’ with JBS drive up the price of land, which will force many young Amish to move away.
My mother recently purchased a puppy from a reputable breeder (yes I know rescue is better, but for a plethora of reasons that wasn’t feasible.) If you go this route, be aware there are a lot of scams out there. One thing I heard from multiple sources is avoid Amish breeders. They care only about the money and not one whit about the animals. While Amish have a reputation for doing things the old fashioned, wholesome and natural way, make no mistake they are also eminently practical. If they’re “farming” dogs, there will be no provision for the dog’s socialization.
Lots of Amish who breed dogs in our area.
Yesterday, we were at Barnes and Noble in Fort Wayne. There were four Amish young women in the store looking at books that are definitely not approved by their church bishop. 🙂 One of the women had red hair. I have seen a lot of Amish folks over the years. First time I’ve seen an Amish person with red hair.
Do any of the Amish districts in your area practice “Rumspringa” for the teenagers, before they decide whether to be baptized into the church? Apparently some districts allow this and others don’t. The woman you saw might have been going through that.. or she lets her “hair down” when out amongst the English and then tucks it back under her “kapp” before going back to her community.
I personally find the Amish interesting. I always buy an Amish calendar from Millers Bakery and Furniture store, a huge Amish business in Wheat Ridge, a blended Amish-English enclave near Serpent Mound in Adams County (Southern Ohio). I always drive through the area, and notice fewer horse and buggies and more pick up trucks..and now every house has a skid steer. Apparently the Bishop is ok with this. Still clothes lines, though, with the traditional Amish clothing- solid color dresses for women and blue denim trousers (barn fly front) and light solid color shirts for men.
Like the rest of society, different districts are adapting to new technology and societal trends. Some for the better, some for the worse. My interactions with them have always been positive. They are at least from my experience a very humble and polite people, which I think is sadly missing from a lot of our society, especially the uber-religious part. And for the most part they do not evangelize/proselytize. In fact it’s more likely you will be discouraged at first if you express interest in becoming a part of their community. I read a book where a Bishop stated that people fall in love with what they perceive as the Amish lifestyle, not realizing that a very conservative religious tradition is a big part of that lifestyle.