Henry Beiler was one of the first Amish farmers in Lancaster County to preserve his land forever.
In separate transactions in the 1980s, he preserved half of his Upper Leacock Township livestock, dairy, hog and crop farm with the county's Agricultural Preserve Board and the other half with the Lancaster Farmland Trust.
He donated a preservation easement and took a federal tax deduction.
He saved the land — which lies between Route 23 and a possible southern route of a long-proposed Route 23 bypass — to avoid an industrial designation that township supervisors preferred at the time.
"That was the only recourse I had," Beiler said now. "If the township didn't want to preserve the farmland, then I would have to take matters in my hand."
For many years, Beiler's decision was unusual in Lancaster's Old Order Amish settlement.
The Amish were slow to embrace formal preservation because they generally avoid government programs. Besides, the Amish are land preservationists by nature.
About a third of the county's farms are owned by Amish. They view agricultural work as part of their religious duty. So, most have no intention of selling land for development. They give their farms to their sons or sell them to other Amish farmers.
In recent years, however, more Amish have joined Beiler in formally preserving their farms.
Most donate their easements or sell at bargain prices (averaging $800 an acre) to the private Farmland Trust.
"At first we did very little work with Amish," said Karen Martynick, director of the trust. "Now they make up 85 percent of the farms we preserve."
Some have even been willing to take the higher compensation (up to $4,000 an acre) offered by county government through the Agricultural Preserve Board.
"We work primarily with non-Amish," noted Preserve Board director Matt Knepper, "but it seems more and more every year we work with a few more Amish farmers. They're generally younger than non-Amish farmers."
Why the change in philosophy?
"Early on it was seen as taking a handout," Beiler explained, "but now, with a little education, it's seen as selling your development rights."
Lancaster County Amish farmers have seen what happened in neighboring Chester County, where few farmers preserved land and the agricultural community and its support system have been reduced drastically in recent years.
Also, says Beiler, younger Amish farmers often welcome cash in exchange for easements.
"I wish the commitment would be in their heart rather than the check in their pocket," he said.
"The commitment to preservation is increasing because of the money that's in it."
Preserved Amish farms are not evenly distributed throughout the county.
The oldest part of the Amish settlement, in the eastern end, is the least preserved.
Several years ago, the Preserve Board and Farmland Trust received $2 million to preserve farms within a "strategic square" in the eastern end. They wound up spending part of the money elsewhere because not enough Amish farmers participated.
Amish farmers elsewhere in the county are more open to preservation, Knepper notes.
"Generally speaking, the younger generation of Amish are less conservative than their parents," he explained.
"They've moved into the southern, western or northern ends of the county and are more willing to work with the government to preserve their farms."
The preservation program itself has drawn Amish to new areas of the county, claimed Gene Garber, chairman of the Preserve Board.
There were no Amish families in densely preserved East and West Donegal townships in 1988, when Garber retired from Major League Baseball. Now, he said, there are about 30 families on 20 farms.
"They know they can come here and their grandkids can come here, too," he noted. "I'm convinced that wouldn't have happened without preservation."