Why Cows Need Names and More Secrets of Amish Farms by Randy James (review)

Popular curiosity about the Old Order Amish is greater than ever before. Countless publications and other media products—from rigorously researched scholarly studies to Amish-themed romance novels to fanciful “reality” television programs such as “Amish Mafia”—are served up every year to feed the appetites of curious outsiders not only in North America, but also around the globe. Not surprisingly, the truth content of the various books, articles, films, and television programs dealing with the Amish varies widely, depending largely on the producer of such materials and the audience toward which they are directed. While it is true that the most reliable depictions of Amish life are generally to be found in publications directed at scholarly audiences, there are a number of popularly accessible products that are of equally good quality. The book under review here is a fine example of the latter.

Randy James is a retired professor from the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at the Ohio State University. His book is the second he has written based on his nearly three decades of experience as an agricultural extension agent in Geauga County, Ohio, home to the fourth-largest Amish settlement in North America. The first, Why Cows Learn Dutch and Other Secrets of Amish Farms (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press), appeared in 2005. The titles of both James’s books are clearly intended to attract a general readership, and the word secrets suggests slightly salacious content. In fact, what James reveals in both his books is nothing of the sort, nor is he violating the confidences of the Amish people he interacts with by sharing things about which his consultants would not want outsiders to know. On the contrary, the “secrets of Amish farms” are basic facts that explain why the Amish are so successful as small-scale farmers; “Keys to Amish Agricultural Viability” would be a more accurate but less catchy subtitle.

In Why Cows Need Names James recounts his experiences mainly with a young Geauga Amish couple and their children, the pseudonymous Gingerich family, who in 2005 weigh the decision to start a dairy farm. Eli, the father, contacts James to get his professional advice on whether he thinks such a move would be feasible. After careful planning and considerable number crunching, the Gingeriches take the plunge. James’s book follows the experiences of the Gingerich family over the next five years, during which time they face numerous challenges and setbacks but ultimately succeed.

While readers of Why Cows Need Names are drawn into the compelling story of the Gingerich family during this five-year period through James’s eloquent narration of it, the importance of this book is in how he sets the Gingeriches’ experience against the backdrop of the larger Amish society and small-scale farming in twenty-first century America. Early on, James makes clear how the Amish and other small-scale farmers buck the conventional wisdom of agricultural science, the academic milieu of which James is a part. As James puts it, “The mantra of agriculture has long been: get bigger and specialize–or get out” (34). James’s extensive, first-hand experience, however, working with the Geauga Amish—who are highly successful as small-scale and diversified farmers—inspires him to meet that conventional wisdom head on:

The bias toward large farms is an ongoing problem, but perhaps one of the most insidious and least understood threats to the long-term survivability of any new farm is the constant doom-and-gloom messages that the U.S. agricultural complex spoon-feeds to reporters, government officials, and the general public. No matter what the current conditions down on the farm actually are, it is devilishly easy for a reporter to find a farmer or an agricultural academic who will moan into the microphone on cue. Of course, we have paid these folks well to develop one of...