VOL. 30 No. 4
Faith and Farming Network to be continued
Mennonite church and a farm located side-by-side in rural
Lancaster County are symbolic of the Faith and Farming
Conference attended by some 150 Mennonite farmers from
Late-night session moves ag legislation in Pa. Senate
HARRISBURG Pennsylvania
legislators, particularly state
senators, got a taste this week of
something that farmers are all too
well familiar with - long hours of
work.
Included in a late-night session
on Wednesday that kept the Senate
in session until the early hours of
Thursday was some ag legislation.
The Senate passed the House
amendment to the Pa. Milk
Marketing Bill, which says that
Bedford Countian wins Alfalfa Growers’ Program
BEDFORD J. Allen Baker, a
Bedford County dairyman, earned
the first place award last week in
the 1984 Alfalfa Growers’
Program. Winners of the contest,
sponsored by the Pa. Forage and
Grassland Council, were
recognized Nov. 20 at the Pa.
Forage Conference at the Moun
tain View Hotel, Westmoreland'
County.
Baker’s winning yield was 10.2
tons per acre of hay equivalent,
4456 pounds'of crude protein per
acre and 11,188 pounds TDN. The
pure stand of alfalfa was grown on
10 acres of Hagerstown soil.
This is the second year that
Baker has won the state-wide
alfalfa contest. In 1982 he earned
first place with a yield of 10.1 tons
hay equivalent, 4014 pounds
protein andll,4BB pounds TDN.
Assistant Bedford County Agent
John Fair, who certified this year’s
yield, noted that the yields from
Baker’s other fields correlated
'closely with the contest field.
periodicals division
W 209 PATTEE LIBRARY
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVER I
MMIVERSITY PARK. ||
Four Sections
retail price-setting powers must be
studied next year in order for the
PMMB to continue in existence
after Sunset review.
The Senate’s PMMB vote was 47
to 1. The lone dissenter was from
Pittsburgh naturally.
Two other ag bills that came
over from the House passed by
unanimous 48 to 0 votes.
The so-called Soil Conservation
Bill contains a major change that
gives Attorney General Office
Baker farms about 600 acres, with
more than 280 acres in hay.
“He harvested hay every four
weeks, beginning May 28th,” said
Fair. “That was his success,
timing himself just about perfectly
for the season.”
A top dairyman in Bedford
County as well, Baker has a herd of
120 registered Holsteins with a
rolling herd average of 19,240 lbs.
of milk with 725 lbs. butterfat.
Second place winner of the
Alfalfa Growers’ Program was
Wilmer Rohrer and Sons, Lan
caster County, with 9.5 tons per
acre hay equivalent, 3815 lbs.
protein and 9896 lbs. TDN.
Herman Espy, Huntingdon
County, had a yield of 8.1 tons per
acre, 3531 protein, and 8865 TDN,
which earned him the third place
award. In 1981 Espy placed first in
the alfalfa contest.
In fourth and fifth place were
Eugene Moser and William
England, respectively. Moser, of
(Turn to Rage A 35)
Lancaster Farming, Saturday,'December 1,1984
throughout the U.S. and Canada at the Laurelville Mennonite
Church Center at Mount Pleasant this week.
legal support to county con
servation districts when they go
out and enforce state DER
regulations, such as those con
cerning sedimentation and erosion
control.
Previously, county con
servationists were pretty much out
in the cold when they would en
force such state regulations on
housing developments and the
owner threatened them with
trespass suits. _
Also passed was tne f ertilizer
Bill, which reduces fines for the
first offense of falsely representing
fertilizer from 10 times the value of
the deficiency in the formulation to
five times the value. But the law
drastically increases fines for
second and subsequent offenses to
prevent repeat violations.
House concurrence on Senate
Sunset legislation to continue the
Farm Show Commission was also
expected.
(7.50 per Year
Mutual help
offered for
hard times
MT. PLEASANT A gathering
of Mennonite farmers who came
together this week for a Faith and
Farming Conference plan to
remain in touch through an in
formal rural network to provide
help and support for their fellow
stewards of the land experiencing
difficulties during these troubled
agricultural times
“We want to keep this network at
the grassroots farming level,”
explains Leon Good, Mennonite
farmer from Lititz, Lancaster
County, who participated in the
conference and led some
discussions.
“This network would be a
velricle'fcwfKfcvide continuing help
and support - primarily moral and
spiritual - to farmers experiencing
problems.”
Good explains it is planned to
organize the network at a regional
level since the scope and type of
problems in agriculture differ
from area to area.
“We had farmers from the
Midwest and Canada at our con
ference who farm 1,000 acres and
consider themselves small,” he
explained.
“Our problems may be very
different from area to area.”
While the network would be
continued by farmers themselves,
it is expected that the Mennomte
Central Committee at Akron, Pa.
would be asked to serve as overall
coordinator of the continuing ef
fort.
Some 150 Mennonite farmers
from throughout the U.S. and
(Turn to Page A 35)