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W2O9 A PATTE L-IBRARY_ y —[■ _ 1
STATE UNIVERSITY
V 01.47 No. 16
Steve Moore of Sonnewald Natural Foods stands in the greenhouse that is in produc
tion year-round for the store’s produce demand. The business combines a greenhouse
operation with a store to market supplements, educational books, and herbs, in addition
totrUH, vegetables, and grains. Photo by Michelle Kunjappv
Sonnewald Markets Produce, Education
Farm Store Part of MADMC Tour
MICHELLE KUNJAPPU
Lancaster Farming Staff
SPRING GROVE (York Co.)
Note: This feature is part of a
series that highlights direct mar
keting operations. These busi
nesses are a part of the Mid
Atlantic Direct Marketing Con
ference tour. The conference will
take place Feb. 20-23 at the Holi-
Lancaster County Poultry Ambassador Rebecca
Highley perfects her omelet-making skill with the
advice of Lancaster County Poultry Association Pres
ident Andy Bradford, center, and Guy Martin, board
member. The association was one of several groups
that served food during Lancaster extension’s annual
meeting. See page B 2 for more about this tasty
event. Photo by Lou Ann Good
www.lancastorfarming.coni Four Sections
dome in York. For more informa
tion look for the conference
schedule on page A 24.
The goal of Sonnewald Natu
ral Foods, a combination farm
and store, is not simply to market
the farm’s produce.
Educating customers about
health and food has been para
mount since the business was
founded 50 years ago by Grace
Lefever and her late husband
Tim. The operation has been car
ried on by their daughter Willa
and her husband Bill.
In 1951 Tim and Grace com
pleted an active solar green
house, the first in Pennsylvania.
Today the fann and greenhouse
(Turn to Pag* A 22)
Small Farm
Graziers Gather
MICHELLE KUNJAPPU
Lancaster Farming Staff
QUARRYVILLE (Lancaster
Co.) Two days of seminars
provided a forum for approxi
mately 230 producers to learn
about opportunities for small
farms, the theme of the South
east Pennsylvania Grazing Con
ference. Lancaster County
Graziers, sponsors of the event,
conducted the conference at So
lanco Fairgrounds.
On Monday topics included
small farm economics, on-farm
processing and marketing, and
understanding soil.
Tuesday Doug Gunnink
opened the conference with
principles of grass management.
Nutrition is the most import
ant, said Gunnink. “It’s import
ant that nutrition not come from
a mineral bag or supplements
but in the grass.” He advised
producers to “work-on getting
sugars high up in the plant” for
the cow.
“The ultimate monitoring
tool in grass farming is the
cow,” he said. Soil testing
should help make producers
make decisions about pasture
(Turn to Page A 23)
Saturday, FebruaryJ£*.2oo2
Of Cheap Food
Challenged At Conference
DAVE LEFEVER
Lancaster Farming Staff
STATE COLLEGE (Centre
Co.) More than 1,000 people
turned out for the 11th annual
“Farming for the Future” con
ference of the Pennsylvania As
sociation for Sustainable
Agriculture (PASA) here last
week.
Highlights of the two-day
event included presentation of a
sustainable ag leadership award,
a variety of educational sessions,
and the words of keynote
speaker John Ikerd, ag econo
mist from Missouri.
Ikerd challenged the group to
reclaim a sense of community
and connection to the land in the
face of an industrialized system
of agriculture.
Ever fewer farmers have been
feeding a growing nation, and
Americans spend only a little
more than a dime on food out of
every dollar they earn. Those
facts shows the “impressive effi
ciency” of our agriculture, Ikerd
said.
“But what is the cost of that
cheap food?” he asked.
Ikerd grew up on a small
dairy farm in Missouri. In the
Sustainable ag leaders from left, Jim and Moie Crawford
of New Morning Farm, Hustontown, with farm manager
Chris Fullerton. The Crawfords were recognized by PASA
for 30 years of growing and marketing a wide variety of or
ganic produce and teaching rfiany people. Photo by
Dave Lefever
Drought Emergency
Declared For 24 Counties
LANCASTER (Lancaster
Co.) After signing a drought
emergency proclamation for 24
counties earlier this week, De
partment of Environmental Pro
tection (DEP) Secretary David
Hess discussed the drought and
water resource protection at a
Lancaster Agricultural Issues
Forum at Landis Valley Farm
Museum Thursday.
About 60 agribusiness repre
sentatives, farmers, lobbyists,
and elected officials attended
the forum.
“We cannot stress enough the
importance of water and the se
$34.00 Per Year
19605, he studied at the Univer
sity of Missouri and become an
extension ag economist. His
work took him to major univer
sities in Georgia, Oklahoma,
and North Carolina.
During the farm financial
crisis of the 1980 s, his approach
to ag economics underwent a
profound change.
“I started to question what I
saw happening and came to see
that the profit-maximization ap
proach being used by ag profes
sionals was at the root of the
problem,” he said.
He witnessed his brother’s
struggle to maintain the family
dairy farm in Missouri during
the 1980 s. His brother expanded
the milking herd, “was working
too hard and going broke,”
Ikerd said. After downsizing
and switching to a grass-based
operation, his brother now gets
less milk per cow but greater
profits and is making a comfort
able living from the farm.
Ikerd returned to the Univer
sity of Missouri in 1989 to pro
vide state and national
leadership for research and edu
cation programs related to sus
(Turn to Page A 26)
rious issues farmers in Pennsyl
vania are facing due to the
drought emergency,” Secretary
Hess said. “We need to develop
longterm water use strategies as
part of a comprehensive ap
proach to better manage our
water resources. Lancaster
County, one of Pennsylvania’s
largest farming communities, is
a prime example of why we need
to protect and preserve our pre
cious water resources for the
future.”
With groundwater levels dan
gerously low in the southcentral
(Turn to Page A2S)
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