BY LAUREL SCHAEFFER
Staff Correspondent
OLEY More than 80 residents
of Oley Township interested in
preserving their hertiage and
fertile farmland attended a public
meeting Tuesday evening con
ducted by the Oley Township
Resource Conservation Project. -
Held at Friedens Lutheran
Church, Route 73, Oley, the
meeting was primarily about the
progress and findings of an
agricultural survey conducted
within the township in March, 1980.
The conservation project of Oley
was selected by the Rational Trust
for Historic Preservation as a
model for their Rural Project, just
begun last year.
The goals of the project include
the collection and documentation
of information on the community’s
agricultural, scenic, natural and
historic assests in the hopes that
this information will help Oley’s
develop a realistic plan
that will help conserve Oley’s rural
environment.
The National Trust is assisting
the project with the added
assistance of the' Berks County
Conservancy, helping it’s residents
identify and collect information on
it’s resources and assets.
Farm Inventory
The survey discussed during the
recent meeting was conducted by
the agricultural resources sub
committee to take inventory of the
farmland within the township. This
included the number of faims,
acres of cropland and types of
crops produced, including the
numbers and kinds of livestock
raised. Also surveyed were the
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Oley seeks to preserve its ag past
problems and needs of the farmers
within the township and their
feelings on ways to insure a
healthy, rural future.
Of the 112 landowners of 20 or
more acres within the township, 93
responded to the survey. Andrew
Glick, chairman of the agricultural
resource committee was very
pleased with this.response of 83
percent. He commented that it was
a good indication that the residents
of the township were concerned
about the future of agriculture in
the township.
-The survey also identified the
number of landowners actively
engaged in fanning or renting
their land and the different age
groups of the fanners. The results
indicated that 68 percent of the
land owners farmed their land
while the remaining rented it out.
Only four percent of the active
farmers in the township were
under 30 years of age, causing
some concern amoung the com
mittee members, since 26 percent
'Were over the age of 65.
Also emphasized during the
meeting were the number of
generations which have fanned
the same land. The survey
revealed that over half 55
percent of the farms were only
in the family for one generation
and 27 percent were in the family
for two generations, totaling 82%
of the farms. At three generations
the number decreased to six
percent; four generations to five
percent and five generations were
on the same farm in only one
percent of the cases surveyed.
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Looking over map for Oley farmland project chairman; Garrett Brinton, executive
preservation project are, from the left, director of Berks County Conservancy; An-
Elizabeth Watson, field representative from drew Click and son, Timothy.
National Trust Rural Project; Hilda Fisher,
Troubling Question
This raised the . question
troubling farmers for yehrs, of how
farms can be kept in families or
even more importantly, how can
the residents of the township keep
the farms in agricultural
production, when the land is being
pressured by urbanization, and as
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Uncaster Farming, Saturday, September 5,1981-Dll
in Oley’s case, also quarrying. As
Click noted, the land will even
tually change hands, much of it in
the next 20 years and who will be
the deed holders?
The survey also indicated that 11
percent of the farmers in the
township only rented the land, two
of them being under thirty, or half
(eight 80 4-inoh (2040 nun)
its. Standard
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of that age group. And of the active
farmers, 73 percent formed as
their main occupation while the
rest were part-time farmers.
Other important points of the
survey revealed that well over 80%
of the landowners wanted their
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