Amidst Challenge Of Urban Pressure, York Farm Family Continues To Raise Beef
(Continued from Page A 1)
King for full-time help.
Steven’s father, Harold, also
comes by to check out the farm’s
operation. The women hold off
The Gross family sends out about three loads of cattle
a month.
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1,300 rented acres makes up the
farm, which lies in the Manches
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ter and Mount Wolf areas.
The home farm area has been
in the family for eight
generations. Corn, soybeans,
wheat, hay, barley, and oats are
the main crops that the family
raises. In addition, they have ap
proximately 700 head of steers on
feed and 100 beef commercial
crossbred brood cows, besides a
few head of hogs.
Close Neighbors
The 2002 winners of the Penn
sylvania Cattlemen’s Association
Cattle Feeder of the Year award,
the family has learned how deal
with residential and industrial
neighbors.
“The pasture backs right into
the town,” said Gross. Cows step
over the township into the bor
ough with regularity, as 40 acres
of pasture are located in the bor
ough boundaries.
Additionally, in 1992 the fami
ly became neighbors to the large
Starbucks facility. The center
once an area farmed by the
Grosses borders their field,
since the industrial park that
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 9, 2002-A35
houses the Starbucks Coffee cen
ter joins the farm’s boundary.
In addition, developers next to
other farms are building more
apartments.
“The value of the land around
here is high because of industry
and development,” said Gross.
Close proximity to a major inter
state also drives up land prices,
he said.
Even rented ground has be
come precious. A developing golf
course now stands on fields the
Grosses have farmed since 1967.
Although they are holding steady
with finding other of ground to
farm, “now we have to travel,
too,” he said.
Rather than rail against the
growth surrounding their land,
however, the Gross family has
chosen to turn pressure into prof
it.
A wood products manufactur
ing facility housed at the indus
trial park has yielded sawdust
that they have used for bedding
for several years now.
Although results were not good
enough to
continue the
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tried to use the coffee bean shells
from the nearby facility. The
shells were tested and came back
as 16 percent protein, so they
mixed them with the feed. How
ever it was difficult to balance the
ration effectively.
Also, the Grosses have farmed
and are farming, areas slotted for
development. One day they came
upon one of their rented corn
fields, earmarked for develop
ment, to find that building had
started and com was in the pro
cess of being mowed down.
“We hurried and got the
equipment and chopped it,” said
Daniel. “Sometimes you just
have to work around them.”
On other fields, “we gambled
and put barley in,” although
houses could be standing on the
field by May. The Grosses pay
rent only on the ground where
they harvest a crop.
Although they have been will
ing to adjust, they are realistic
about the future of farming in
their area. “Someday it might not
be economical to (farm),” said
Daniel. However he believes that
they are moving in the right di
rection as they attempt to expand
territory to farm.
experiment,
the Gross
family also
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