New Neighbours

I'd been wanting to write about the Buddhist monks from Taiwan for quite a while. Getting information hasn't been easy,  not necessarily because the monks are trying to hide anything,  but they're very careful about how the public perceives them. There's also a very real language barrier.  Then I heard the Amish were also looking at coming to PEI, so I thought I'd write about both. This was a column that followed... and I'm including a second news stories not because I'm concerned about the farming practices of the Amish but because it shows that even farming practices we assume to be "right" can have uninended consequences.

Our New Neighbours

It may not happen for another year, but when you see a hitching post at the Tim Hortons in Montague, Souris or Kensington, you’ll know that PEI is the new home for some young Amish families. The agriculture economy has been very tough on farm families over the last fifteen years, and rural numbers continue to decline, but similar to what happened in the 1960’s and early ‘70’s, as PEI farmers get out, some willingly, others reluctantly, there are those who see opportunities to move in.  It was “back to the landers”, and Dutch tobacco, dairy and potato farmers and their families back then. Now it’s Buddhist monks from Taiwan, and possibly young Amish farm families from Ontario.

For the Amish it’s relatively cheap farmland, roads with good shoulders for those horse and buggies, and, according to someone who knows, yes even the Amish love Tim Hortons.  There was a period in the 1970’s when farms in PEI’s potato belt around Kensington were considered the most valuable in the country.  That changed as valuable seed potato markets were lost, and farmers were forced to switch to producing for the much less profitable french fry business. At the same time farmland around Amish and Mennonite communities in Ontario has shot up in value because of urban expansion,  and profitable corn and soybean markets.  Taken together PEI’s farmland is seen as a bargain, and gives young Amish families a chance to farm.

The story is a little more complicated, and difficult to get at, with the Buddhist monks and their supporters from Taiwan.  Taiwan is a highly industrialized, wealthy, capitalist country that exists precariously close to China, it’s long time ideological enemy. Buddhists in Taiwan know full well the violent repression of Buddhism in Tibet by the Chinese, and this particular group decided it was important to establish a home somewhere else in the world.  The spiritual leader of the Moonlight Foundation, a woman named Jin, had been moved by the selfless medical work of Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune during the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1940’s, so Canada seemed like a good place to look.  Why rural eastern PEI? The question is often answered: “Because it’s quiet”. In other words, the monks need distance from the big city to practice the meditation that’s so important to their beliefs.  It’s probably fair to say that just like the Amish, the monks were attracted to relatively cheap farmland,  but, unlike the Amish, there was also a need for modern communication and transportation links, and the ability to move containers of soybean by sea back to Taiwan for processing.

Let’s be honest. It’s been unnerving for some to see saffron robed young men tilling and weeding vegetable and flower beds in  Heatherdale and Little Sands, large teaching facilities being built, and the purchase of thousands of acres of land in Eastern PEI by the organization.  How many farms does the group expect to buy? What’s it going to do with the many farms it’s already purchased?  These are questions still looking for answers. The group says this about its intentions: “The main goal of the Foundation is to bring happiness to all beings while promoting understanding and social harmony among different cultures.”  Among other activities it has created sanctuaries for farm animals including horses that are no longer wanted, and “promotes organic and natural farming to preserve and restore natural resources, including planting trees”.  Another stated goal is to relieve poverty, so don’t be surprised if there’s another large offering of winter coats to the Salvation Army this winter. I could think of worse neighbours.

The organization’s ability to pay cash for everything from farmland, to construction projects, to a dedicated high speed internet line to Little Sands, to winter tires, comes from sources familiar to any church, it’s lay members. Again Taiwan is a wealthy country, and well heeled business people view financial support of the foundation as contributing to the spiritual well being of themselves and others. There is also a business component to the organization which operates more than 70 supermarkets in Taiwan.  It has to import a huge percentage of the food these sell.  There was a delegation including the premier that went to Taiwan a few months ago to look for opportunities to supply this market. There has also been some discussion of operating a soybean processing plant here on PEI.  All of these could provide solid profitable markets for local farmers.

And don’t forget that no one is forcing PEI farmers to sell, in fact for many it’s been a relief to find a willing buyer.  There’s also no question that both of these groups will operate outside  the conventional farm economy, the Amish looking for simplicity, and self sufficiency, the Taiwanese monks are committed to organic farming “to heal people and the earth.”  And they do something else. A PEI farm family who’d faced tough times was talking business with an agent for the monks. The farmers said they felt respected, that they were doing something of value, something they hadn’t felt from the conventional food marketing system, and even other Islanders. The monks still have to win the trust of many of their neighbours, but for me, that one action was a good start.



 http://grist.org/food/the-amish-makers-of-jam-fine-cabinetry-and-polluted-rivers/

The Amish: Makers of jam, fine cabinetry, and polluted rivers

• by Rona Kobell
• Nov. 6, 2014

Many Amish people have denounced the Discovery Channel’s Amish Mafia TV show, now entering its fourth season, in part because the contrived show has brought them unwanted attention from law enforcement. It furthered a perception they would rather not have out there — that behind the Little House on the Prairie façade lurks a seedy underground rife with drug use, exorcisms, and counterfeit homemade goods.
But the environmental cops have always been much more interested in what was underground in the most literal sense — the pollution seeping into waterways from manure in the soil.
In late 2009, federal agents swooped into a collection of Amish farms in a quiet area of Lancaster County, Pa., where they found troubling evidence of water pollution: High concentrations of nitrates and E. coli bacteria in the water wells, loose manure not properly stored in tanks or sheds, and few livestock fences to keep cows from standing (and presumably defecating) in streams.
EPA inspectors found violations on 85 percent of the Amish farms. They warned the farmers that about half of their drinking water was contaminated with pathogens, and that they needed plans to bring their farms into the modern age of pollution control and conservation.
It’s not like some of the Amish farmers weren’t aware of these problems. One of them had just installed a water-treatment system because he believed the pollution caused his cows to birth dead calves. And the wider damage to the Chesapeake has been well-reported in the region: Excess manure from farms leads to algae blooms that contribute to large swaths of “dead zones,” where crabs and fish are so deprived of oxygen that they can’t survive.
Nevertheless, Amish farmers today remember the Watson Run Sting as a watershed moment, when they suddenly had to deal with an entity they go out of their way to avoid: the government.
“Plain Sect” Amish eschew any kind of government intervention. They consider themselves sovereign. They neither pay into social security and government health benefits nor receive them. They speak their own language and attend their own schools. They follow their own scriptures and codes. So it’s not surprising that some of their farms wouldn’t be up to EPA’s codes.
But while they don’t contribute to government benefits, they continue to be a major contributor to the pollution flowing through the Chesapeake Bay. Agriculture is the largest source of pollution in the Chesapeake, which is fed by a 64,000-square-mile watershed that includes parts of six states and Washington, D.C. The EPA has identified three pollution “hot spots,” where its scientists have concluded a disproportionate amount of pollution is coming relative to size: the Shenandoah Valley, the Delmarva Peninsula, and the Amish’s home base in Lancaster County.
The Shenandoah Valley and the Delmarva Peninsula include many concentrated animal feeding operations — large-scale farms in laymen’s language — with thousands of chickens or cows. They require a federal permit and a great deal of oversight. By contrast, the Lancaster County farms tend to be small, with a few dozen head of milk cows, heifers, or horses on each. And yet they are prodigious polluters. In 2007, Lancaster County generated 61 million pounds of manure. That is six times more than what other counties generated, according to The New York Times.
Often, state officials blame each other for the bay’s pollution; Maryland is fond of pointing a finger at Pennsylvania for dumping its sediment downstream; Virginia officials are miffed that Maryland leaders try to take all the credit for restoration work; and West Virginia’s own attorney general is suing the EPA over its mandatory Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load. But in the case of Watson’s Run, there is no one else to blame but the farmers.
“Watson Run is a headwater stream without any influence of any upstream water bodies,” the EPA Summary Paper reads. “Therefore, stream impairments in Watson Run are not being caused by upstream sources.”
The agency is now requiring farmers to follow the state laws already in place and develop plans to control sediment, store manure, and dispose of dead animals. Most farmers know they have to take these steps — not just because the EPA says so, but because their land and water will be healthier if they do. So perhaps it’s no surprise that after Watson Run, more than a few Amish farmers have been willing to lose a little of their religion over the government-aid question.
The U.S. Farm Bill and state programs offer millions of dollars in assistance to Chesapeake Bay farmers every year for practices that reduce pollution from farms. They include fencing cattle from streams, retrofitting barns to collect stormwater, taking land out of production to plant forested buffers along streams, and building manure storage facilities. None are cheap. A manure storage facility alone can cost up to $150,000. Add to that the planning, accounting, and monitoring of federal funds, and Amish farmers are looking at a long and involved relationship with government officialsm, whether they like it or not.
Plus, they’re starting from behind. The horse-drawn plow looks pastoral against the wheat fields, but it tears up the soil, promotes erosion, and does not keep the manure where it should be — where the plants are. While more sophisticated farmers might need a little assistance, the Plain Sect farmers, in many cases, are starting from a place well in the past.
Still, more money is on the way: The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation just announced nearly $400,000 in grants to the Lancaster Farmland Trust to help clean up the Pequea Creek watershed, which includes Watson Run.
One Amish farmer, Sam Zook, who has a 50-head dairy farm in the Strasburg area of Lancaster County, even invited reporters on a tour of his new $150,000 manure storage shed. Interviews were OK, so long as no one took photographs of him. The Amish believe taking photos of their faces violates scripture.
Zook decided to accept state help because he couldn’t have afforded the project on his own. He said he was less worried about government fines and regulation than about what he could see for himself — that the cows’ waste was flowing into a waterway on his farm.
“I realized every time it rained, it rained on my barnyard, and it flushed my barnyard down to the stream, and it kind of bothered me,” Zook said.
At some point, it may come to pass that farmers won’t have a choice in accepting tougher regulations; the EPA has put the Chesapeake Bay on a pollution diet, and many of the reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus must come from agriculture.
Farmers can implement practices on their own, but not many of them have an extra $150,000 for a manure-storage shed, or even the smaller amounts required to put in forested buffer strips and grass waterways. And farmers may be experts in how soybeans grow, but they don’t necessarily know how to design and build the state-of-the-art infrastructure needed to control pollution. The government has people who can do that, and in many cases, they’ll do it for free or low-cost.
Lamonte Garber, a watershed restoration manager for the nonprofit Stroud Water Research Center who has spent nearly two decades working with Amish farmers, said progress is moving forward, albeit at horse-and-buggy pace.
“It alerted farmers in the area, including Amish farmers, that there was the potential of door-to-door visits and review of plans of facilities,” Garber said of Watson Run. “It was a significant message.”