Agriculture is a major industry in the Chesapeake Bay; consequently, increasing agricultural sustainability is a key component of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s mission. Since the Alliance’s founding in 1971 , our work with farmers and rural landowners has expanded to include projects in every watershed state with teams based in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. In each region and industry, the Alliance works to introduce relevant conservation practices that reduce pollution while making farmers’ jobs easier. All of this critical work is informed by the immense geographic, cultural, and historical diversity of the Chesapeake Watershed.

Although the Alliance has worked with farmers for many years, its dedicated agriculture team was born in 2017 in Lancaster, PA. A high-priority area for conservation, almost 90% of Lancaster County streams are classified as impaired– the highest rate in the state, according to the PA Department of Environmental Protection in 2022.“We saw both the need and the opportunity to help our farmers how we want to help them. From there, it made sense to expand to other geographies,” says Jenna Beckett, Ag Program Director.

Pennsylvania offers abundant opportunities for agriculture conservation; it’s home to over 49,000 farms, covering 7 million acres. Running through these acres is an abundant network of waterways that ultimately feed into the Chesapeake Bay. PA has about 85,500 miles of rivers and streams which supply over 2,000,000 acres of lakes, bays, and wetlands. To improve water quality across the state and its broader watersheds, the Pennsylvania Ag team now includes seven members who coordinate with corporate partners, farmer cooperatives, local initiatives, and hundreds of producers.

The Alliance is not alone in making water quality improvements in the region, joined by many dedicated initiatives such as the Lancaster Clean Water Partners and York County Community Foundation. Cooperatives have also been valuable partners– like Maola Local Dairies, who now have a large sustainability team based in Pennsylvania. They help connect their member farmers with the Alliance and ensure they are educated and supported. It has been exciting for conservation professionals like Jenna, who has been with the Alliance since 2016, to see the momentum build.

“As much as we’ve grown, Maola’s sustainability team has grown even more as they’ve really fallen in love with conservation. They see it as a genuine benefit to themselves and their farmers.”

The scope of the Alliance’s agriculture team would not be possible without the strong network of government, private, and nonprofit organizations with the same goal of sending cleaner water to the bay.

 

The True Value of PA Farms

a drone shot of a farm

A bird’s-eye view of farmland in New Holland, PA.

Pennsylvania is a unique part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed for many reasons, especially the cultural, environmental, and economic significance of its agriculture industry. Conditions are well suited for raising crops and livestock: farmers benefit from a temperate climate, abundant water, fertile soil, and easy access to East Coast markets. As PA’s third largest industry, agriculture has an economic impact of $132.5 billion and employs more than 590,000 people.

While it may surprise some that Pennsylvania leads the nation in mushroom production, the backbone of the industry is grain, poultry, and dairy. On the state’s 4,940 dairy farms– second in number only to Wisconsin– 468,000 dairy cows produce almost 1.3 billion gallons of milk each year. With such a high level of production, you might expect to see sprawling industrial operations as you drive through rural PA, but this is not the case. 99% of dairy farms and 95% of all farms are family-owned. They also tend to be relatively small; the majority range from 50 to 179 acres, as opposed to the US average of 463 acres.

Life in PA can vary wildly depending on the region you live in, and this is especially true for farmers. Counties in southeastern PA average the highest in agricultural sales, and farms there tend to utilize their limited amount of land intensively. Along with dairy and poultry, their rich soils and rolling hills make growing corn, soybeans, and wheat profitable. But urbanization is a major threat– in Lancaster, over 3,000 acres of farmland are converted annually.

In central and northern PA, farms tend to have more acreage to work with but face different challenges. To reach more producers, the Alliance has expanded its remote staff, including Brittney Hartzell in Bloomsburg. She explains the role of geography in agriculture:

“The farther north you go in PA, urbanization slows down and the landscape is more rural, mountainous, and forested. This results in less topsoil and organic matter for crops, and more land that is too steep to farm or graze cattle.”

All PA farmers, however, share a goal of adapting to an ever-changing landscape. While agriculture remains a thriving industry, small farm sizes can leave many PA farmers vulnerable to short-term setbacks. Nearly half of them make $10,000 or less in total sales per year and, despite the prevalence of dairy in the state, PA dairy farms are shrinking and have among the smallest herd sizes in the nation. The good news is that funding and technical support are increasingly available to local farmers, as well as organizations like the Alliance which know how to leverage it to increase farms’ production and resilience.

 

The history and culture of Pennsylvania agriculture

Cows grazing in a field in front of a red barn

A classic mid-1800s “Pennsylvania barn” in Berks County. Photo credit: LancasterFarming.com

Beyond its environmental and economic importance, agriculture is deeply rooted in Pennsylvania’s heritage. Many farms have been passed down through families for decades or even centuries. So far, the PA Department of Agriculture has recognized 2,340 Century and Bicentennial Farms and two Tricentennial Farms. Going back even further in our history, Native Americans long recognized Pennsylvania’s prime climate for farming. In the Delaware Valley region, the Delaware or Lenape cultivated corn and the Monongahela grew corn, beans, and squash.

With William Penn’s promise of religious freedom, immigrants from Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland later spread through PA and turned it into the “breadbasket of America.” From the 1720s through the 1840s, it supplied the majority of the young nation’s food. A diversity of crops and livestock flourished, and agriculture grew to employ over 90 percent of the workforce in 1820.

The agricultural revolution and expansion of the railroad led to a more competitive market for PA farmers, who began to specialize by region. The Adams County fruit belt, for example, was well known for its apple orchards. Many farmers honed in on dairy when the industry took off in the 20th century and new technology like refrigeration, pasteurization, disease control, and sanitary milk separators became accessible. PA was an agricultural powerhouse and held the first Farm Show, now the world’s largest indoor agricultural event, in 1917.

Agriculture in PA inevitably slowed down during the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries as the industry consolidated and rural populations shrank. From about 224,000 farms in 1900, only 53,000 remained in 2017. Today, government and nonprofit groups like Lancaster Farmland Trust fight to slow the trajectory of farmland development. Thanks to them, Pennsylvania now has the highest number of permanently preserved farms and acres in the country. Pennsylvanians continue to hold a place in national and international markets, and can also enjoy PA Dutch delicacies like apple butter, birch beer, and Lebanon Bologna at home.

 

How the alliance works with Pennsylvania farmers

a drone shot of a group of people gathered on a farm near grazing cows

Alliance and Maola sustainability staff prepare to plant trees together on a Maola member farm in Lancaster, PA.

The PA Ag team recognizes the importance of conservation on the state’s many small farms which can be underserved by traditional agricultural programs. Keeping with this philosophy, the team developed a corporate partnership model in 2017 to leverage financial and technical support for conservation on each interested farm in a corporation’s supply chain. Known as “insetting”, this strategy allows the team to reach many more producers and have a broader impact.

The Alliance works with farms differing greatly in size, financial capacity, and even industry. While most of our projects occur on dairy farms, our corporate model has been successfully adapted for the poultry industry, and we hope to work with more beef operations soon. Brittany Smith, a senior projects manager dedicated to poultry companies and farmers, sees the team’s expansion as a chance to serve a wider segment of the ag community:

“We all have expertise in different areas, and need each other to find solutions to complex problems. In poultry, many of our projects focus on planting trees around chicken houses to improve air flow, biodiversity, and animal health– but we are also exploring more nature-based practices for the future.”

Producers may be members of a coop, supply to one of our corporate partners, or be entirely independent. A large portion of the farmers working with our team are members of the Plain sect (Amish and Mennonite) community, which is approximately 81,000 people strong in PA. Many in the Amish community use traditional farm equipment and decline to accept government funding, leaving them out of the majority of conservation programs. While much of the Alliance’s funding originates from state and federal sources, the PA team has made a special effort to apply for private and nonprofit grants to better support conservative farmers.

“We have been able to build out services to meet the Amish community where they are. Being a nonprofit, we have more flexibility than a government or regulatory agency would,” explains Jenna Beckett, who developed a passion for bringing support to Plain sect farmers during her time with the county conservation district.

cows in a barnyard

Lancaster dairy cows enjoying a newly-stabilized Heavy Use Area, which will keep them comfortable and help prevent erosion and runoff.

The people, landscapes, and farms of PA are incredibly diverse; communication with each producer and partner helps us understand their values and tailor our approach to meet their needs. Farmers care for the land and water directly every day, and many are eager to adapt traditional methods to be more sustainable. Use of conventional tillage, for example, has declined in PA from a rate of 80% of farmed acres 20 years ago to 30% today. Alexandra Neumann, agriculture projects manager, describes what makes installing “best management practices” so rewarding:

“It is wonderful to work with a farmer whose perspective shifts as the project unfolds and they see the benefits to their farm. We’ve been able to hear firsthand how it’s transforming producers’ operations and making them sustainable long-term.”

Looking ahead, the team is excited to continue building momentum for practices like no-till and cover cropping, as well as take on more advanced soil health and biodiversity initiatives. A strong, flexible network of partnerships will help ensure a long and healthy future for PA’s beautiful farms and streams.

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