Farmland is much more than pretty

Over the past few decades, the Lehigh Valley has had a lot of development. We had major housing booms in the 1980s and 2000s, and more recently our growing place in the global e-commerce economy has brought buildings the size of which we’ve never seen before. And all that growth has translated into more congestion on our roads. That’s the price of being an attractive place where people want to live, and business operators believe they can flourish.

There’s no disputing that over the past 40 years we have matured into a midsized region, on our way to large. But despite all of our growth, the Lehigh Valley remains very much an agricultural region. It may not feel that way when you are frustrated by taillights at 5 p.m. on a weekday along Route 22 but, in many places in this Valley of ours, if you veer off the beaten path, you’ll find miles and miles of glorious, beautiful, rolling farm fields.

According to the last Census of Agriculture – new farming census numbers are due to be released in February — the Lehigh Valley has 840 farms. Unlike the giant corporate farms of the Midwest, most of ours are small, family-owned farms, with more than half less than 50 acres. About one-third are animalbased, and two-thirds are plant-based. Most are oilseed and grain farms with crops such as corn, soybean, wheat, barley and rye. And while you’ll often see tractors or combines moving across the horizon, many of our farmers are innovators with next level technology.

Brian Dietrich operates his family-owned, 400-acre Lynnacres Farm in Lynn Township. One of the few dairy farms in the region, Lynnacres uses a robotic milking system that automatically milks each of his 200 cows about three times a day. The cows are trained to make their way to the machines, and the laser-guided milkers collect data for every cow. Dietrich can follow it all from his phone. He knows which cows are milking and which haven’t visited the milkers. He knows the quality of the milk from each cow and whether any of the cows are sick.

“My grandfather farmed with horses, my father farmed with tractors and

I’m farming with computers,” Dietrich said. “If you are not innovating, you are falling behind and you probably won’t survive in this environment.”

“This environment” is one in which Lehigh Valley farmers say that, over the past 40 years, the cost of their expenses keeps increasing while the prices of the commodities they produce stagnate. That dynamic has many evolving to meet a new economy and new expectations. Some are even adjusting the crops they grow.

Because most of our farmers have relatively small acreage, it has become increasingly difficult to turn a profit on the type of grain and oilseed crops that have dominated the region’s farming for decades. So, some are turning more toward what they call specialty crops, such as pumpkins, apples, microgreens or sunflowers, while others are using greenhouses and even duck barns to juice up their profit-per-acre. Many are trying more direct-to-consumer sales.

But those farm stands and stalls at our beloved farmers markets make on average under $5,000 per operator per year. Others are supplementing their crop revenues by adding agritourism such as hayrides, corn mazes or farming experience packages. Still the corn maze, Christmas tree farms and apple orchard, if not diversified, teeter on the edge of too seasonal and may not yield enough profit to keep the propane tank filled and the mortgage paid.

Family-sustaining agriculture is typically at a much larger scale like Brian Dietrich’s dairy operation. His family farm is affiliated with Land O’Lakes and even transports milk to Hershey for chocolate. Our farmers, like the Dietrich’s, support the “manufacturing” of milk, which then is packaged or processed into many other consumables.

So yes, our farmers are agri-manufacturers. I’ve heard too many times from the economic development community that farming revenues represent only a small fraction of the region’s exploding gross domestic product. But that simply isn’t true, when you factor in the value of final goods manufactured from the raw ingredients provided by our farms, partnered with our other natural resources, like water and wood.

There would be not a single fresh turkey in Wegmans or Whole Foods without Jaindl Farms or Thomas’ English muffins without the Lehigh Valley’s wheat and rye operations. That English muffin is produced in one of those enormous warehousey-looking buildings in Upper Macungie, and is

is best enjoyed with the Land O’Lakes Butter that was made from the milk from the Dietrich’s cows less than 10 miles up Route 100.

Farming of all makes and models is vital to our economy, character and quality of life. So are the processing and finished goods made from its raw materials. The relationship between farms, farmers, manufacturers and all of us as consumers is undeniable. However, you can’t sit down for that holiday dinner without the land and the people that started it all, our farms and our farmers.

In a communitywide survey taken by more than 1,000 people, 59% said ‘the thing they liked most about living in the Lehigh Valley’ was its natural lands and farmlands. That’s a resounding measure of what makes this region so attractive. People value it so much we, almost daily, hear from people whose greatest fear for the region is that it will lose all of its farmland.

There is no question that over the past eight years large industrial buildings have arrived as the region has become a bigger part of the global e-commerce and the food and beverage manufacturing economy. It’s certainly true that some have been built where crops once grew. But I would like to assure everyone that we will never lose all of our farmland. In fact, it’s not possible.

Lehigh and Northampton counties have some of the most active farmland preservation programs in the state. Between them, they’ve preserved more than 640 farms totaling nearly 47,000 acres. If you want to try to visualize that, it’s nearly 73 square miles or 35,000 football fields or 435,200 regulation basketball courts.

Fully 10% of all the land in the Lehigh Valley has already been, legally and permanently, preserved as farmland, and both counties are investing about $1 million a year to preserve hundreds more acres every year. The counties’ $1 million each is matched by state agricultural land preservation dollars and in many cases municipal funds, as well.

Farming is a key part of our brand and that’s not changing. And, whether the farmer has chosen to preserve the land or just continue to farm it as they always have, we need to keep all of our assets intact. No farms, no food after all.

So, when you are reminiscing with your friends and family over potato filling, apple pie and roast turkey, remember that many of the farming families that have helped the region build such a commendable identity need our support. Let’s offer up a toast, with a glass of local spirits, to the people and the land that make our region a home, our farmers and their farms.

You’ll be helping to preserve an identity that’s been nearly 300 years in the making.