Amish Dedication to Farming and Adoption of Organic Dairy Systems - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 236

the primary researcher. 11 Letters were sent to the farmers with response postcards
enclosed so that a meeting time could be arranged since the Amish do not have
phone access. Notes were typed up shortly after each interview, as they were not
recorded. Interview data, Amish newsletters and other literature were used to discern
motivations to farm and farm management decisions especially related to organic
farming among the Hillsboro and Cashton settlements.

12.4 Oikonomia -Bounded Rationality Reasons for Farming

Among the Amish

A critical take-off point of our empirical analysis is a discussion of the complex
reasons why the Amish farm, and specifically why they favor dairy farming. Their
deep commitment to dairy farming connects not only to family and to how one raises
children, but also to what holds the church community together and nourishes their
faith. In other words, the interplay of family, labor, history, and faith is crucial to
understanding the motivations of Amish farming and their farm decision-making.
The Amish in this area are farming because they believe the farm is a good
place to raise a family (98 % of respondents); it is a lifestyle consistent with
their faith (97 % of respondents), they enjoy working outdoors, and they enjoy
the independence (93 % of respondents). Only about one-third of the Amish dairy
farmers (32 % of respondents) felt that the ability to earn a good income was the
reason that they farm (Brock et al. 2006 ). These motivations illustrate clearly why
an integrated value based approach is critical to study farming and farm decision-
making.
In particular, the Amish believe that farming makes family and community more
reliant on God. This idea is well expressed by an interviewee who said, “there
is a virtue of working with the soil and remembering the Creator.” As an Amish
elder cites from scripture, you need to rely on “the rain and the snow come down
from heaven” 12 when you are farming. Another Amish farmer loosely refers to the
scripture teaching us not worry about everyday life because God provides for our
needs, and he goes onto to say that the farming operation forces him to rely on God's
control. 13 God's role in the production process is seen in very tangible ways as
another Amish responds to compliments about their flower bed with the statement,
“The Lord makes them grow, we just try to do our part.” As an entry in an Amish
newsletter states, “[Although] Farming is not a top paying job [

] Isn't farming
still the most important and best for the family?” (Anonymous 2006 ). Many of these

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11 However, there were a few interviews with Amish elders and other informants that were
co-conducted with Dr. Dail Murray, a professor from UW-Marinette who was studying other
socio-anthropological topics related to Amish in the Kickapoo.
12 Isaiah 55: 10.