C2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 12,1980
British farm visitor finds
For Peter Lee, being in the United States is a dream
come true. ‘Tve always wanted to come to America
America is my dream,” he said.
Peter, 25, is visiting in Lancaster County through the
International 4-H Youth Exchange program, and could
not be happier. “I’m very happy just to be here. This is
super—fantastic,” he says of the program.
After his arrival in the United States on May 11, Peter
spent three days in Washington, D.C., then traveled to
Lycoming County where he had three host families. In
Lancaster he is spending two weeks with the Elvin
Brenneman family, Mount Joy, and will spend two weeks
with the Curtis Akers family, Quarryvdle R.D.
before leaving the Commonwealth and traveling for
Montana for the second half of his visit to this country.
Peter is enthusiastic about Pennsylvania and feels
pretty much at home here, saying it reminds him of his
native southeastern England.
“The countryside is so beautiful. Here is it very much
like southern England. I was afraid I’d miss the trees, but
there are lots of trees.”
“I’m having a wonderful tune. People are so friendly. I
want to learn and people open up to me,” he says with
pleasure. Peter’s good natured sense of humor surfaces
repeatedly, and with his instinct for learning, he seems
the perfect candidate for an international exchange.
Peter has been a member of Young Farmers for many
years, and it is that organization that sponsors him as an
IF YE. This is not the first year he applied to come to the
United States.
He explained, “I tried when I was 21 and when I was 22,
but I didn’t make it. Finally last year I wanted to come so
I flew to California and joined a group called Trek
America. We traveled through the southern states to New
York. I met so many people and people were so friendly.
“When I got home I decided I would make one last try. It
was my last crack at the whip. I thought the fact that I’d
been here would go against me but I think it went the other
way. I learned more and I knew why I wanted to come. ”
He explained that to become an IF YE from the United
Kingdom an applicant must pass three different in
terviews, at the county, regional and state level. There
were 28 people who made it to the national level and four
were selected.
“We have exchanges with 36 countries and now have 200
people abroad, but initial interest in the American IF YE
program was about 300 people,” he said.
While Peter is active in the Young Farmers, he was not
raised on a farm. His father is a banker. Nonetheless, he
has extensive knowledge of farming, having worked on
farms after graduation from school. He first worked on a
1000 acre farm, saying, “It was great fun, but it was
factory farming. It was a business.”
After that he worked on a 60-acre, 40-cow operation
which was more to his liking, but eventually the farm was
sold and became part of a 700-acre farm.
While attending a Young Farmer convention, Peter
chatted with the principle of the local agricultural college
who persuaded him he ought to attend.
“I’m glad I did,” Peter states. “College isn’t only for
mal education. You learn a lot about yourself. I was there
for a year and graduated with credit. I was quite happy
with that.”
When he completed his college credits he went to work
for six months on a dairy operation near his home, but
eventually gave up farming to become a charter bus
driver.
He said he decided to make the change because “there
was too much of the world to see. England is not very big,
but I did not know much of England. I thought ‘This can’t
be right.’ I think you can make the world as big or as small
as you want too. I looked for a job where I could get to see
the countryside.”
While he thoroughly enjoyed his bus driving, when he
came to the United States he gave up his job. “Six months
is a long time and I thought it wasn’t fair to expect to hold
on to it,” he explains.
t#o(cs
Agriculture in England differs somewhat from here, but
not greatly. Peter says, “We grow basically the same
crops, except that we grow no com for gram. Our ‘maize’
we grow only for the silo.”
He adds quickly that upright silos are not common in
England.
“Back home if you have a silo you are a very big far
mer. We dump our silage on concrete pads and cover it
with plastic. But here it seems the fust thing a farmer
does is build a silo. Everybody has a silo.”
Near his home, farmers grow a lot of wheat, barley and
oats and “a lot of grass for hay and for the silo.” He
continues, “I think we tend to put cows out for grass more
than here.”
Although alfalfa is grown, he says he has only seen it
dried into pellets not baled into hay as is the custom here.
He adds, however, “I think alfalfa is the crop of tne future,
with fertilizer going up in price so dramatically.”
BY SALLY BAIR
Staff Correspondent
same language, different
Peter Lee says he “loves" cows. Here he poses with some of the Brenneman herd in the
background.
Peter Lee relaxes on the Brenneman’s porch
while reading Lancaster Farming.
He said most farms are family farms and explained,
“There was a tendency a few years ago to specialize, but
with farming so unpredictable people like to have a little
of everything.”
He states, “I’m really unpressed with the agriculture
here as a whole. There is not a lot of wasted land; it is well
farmed. All the farmers seem to take care with their
farms.”
He would not hazard a guess as to the average farm size
in the United Kingdom, simply saying, “It is very difficult
to say an average because we go from nothing to 200 or 300
acres. Most dairy herds are between 80 and 100 cows and
they are milked in parlors. There are only a few pipelines.
“Economics are dictating larger herds,” he added.
Dairying is what Peter enjoys, except for the demand of
the milking hours.
He said he feels there are more registered cows in this
country, but points out that the Black and White Holsteins
m this country originated in Germany, while the Fnesians
of England are native to Holland.
“The Frieslans are the predominant breed. A good
proportion of dairy herds are not using artificial in
semination, and we buy a lot of semen from Canada.”
In the United Kingdom there is one milk marketing
board which acts as a single cooperative for dairy far
mers. “Farmers have to sell to them and they have to buy
it,” Peter states. “Everybody gets a fair pnce. It is run by
farmers for farmers.”
Peter said it is his impression that at home they con
sume more dairy products than in this country. He said,
“We use more cream, butter and cheese. The three of us
at home use 10-12 pints of milk a week.”
He pointed out that English farmers get about $l2 per
hundred for milk, but adds, “Our feed is much more ex
pensive. We pay bout $2OO a ton for feed.”
At this point Peter explains the difficulty of translating
money and amounts from one language to another. For
4 N
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Corn for grain is something unknown in the
United Kingdom. Peter stands by some of Elvin
Brenneman’s corn as he visits with the Bren
neman family on the first half of his stay in Lan
caster County.
instance, in the United Kingdom they use an Imperial
gallon which is slightly larger than an American gallon.
There is also the necessity of translating pounds to
dollars, and in the end, Peter notes, “It’s very difficult to
start talking about why prices are higher in England. We
must talk in ‘real terms,’ and in ‘real terms’ do we pay
that much more?”
In discussing the high prices in England, Peter laughs
and says, “To me England is the norm, and America is
cheap.”
He added, “I’d love to have the standard of living you
have here. I think people live very well over here, and
luxury goods are probably more expensive in England.
Food is very cheap here. At home we pay $5.00-$6.00 a
pound for steak. And a meal at MacDonalds would cost
$3.50 for one person.”
Because of his recent experience in this country, Peter
said he didn’t bring many clothes with him. “Clothes here
are half price,” he said.
Before he came to this country, Peter said it had been
his impression that the English were more conserving
than Americans. However, he said, if the average family
drives from 8000 to 10,000 miles a year it is about the same
as m the United Kingdom.
He said he pays about over $3 for an Imperial gallon,
which is larger than American gallons. For the same
amount, their price is about double the price here.
Peter bad the unusual experience of being in this
country over the Fourth of July, as Americans celebrated
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ideas