MODERN AMISH FARMING AS ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE

Critics of industrial agriculture and advocates of ecological agricult ure have cited Amish farming as a model of stewardship and sustainabil ity. Amish farming in St. Lawrence County, New York, embodied ecologic al agriculture in some respects but not others. In comparison with non -Amish neighbors, Amish farms were smaller in scale, more diverse, and less integrated into the market economy. On the other hand, use of fe rtilizers and pesticides for crop production appeared to differ in kin d, nor amount. Amish farmers relied primarily on their own experience, not trade magazines or the local cooperative extension, for agricultu ral information. The high use of petroleum-based inputs may have refle cted the newness of Amish settlement in St. Lawrence County, a lack of awareness of the ecological impacts of these substances, or a shift a way from traditional practices. In the self-sufficiency of their lives based on subsistence and diversity, these Amish otherwise exemplified the productive and self-regulatory characteristics of ecological agri culture.