Wendell Berry on Amish Principles

Excerpt from Wendell Berry's Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food:

I have had in mind throughout this essay the one example known to me of an American community of small family farmers who have not only survived but thrived during some very difficult years: I mean the Amish. I do not recommend, of course, that all farmers should become Amish, nor do I want to suggest that the Amish are perfect people or that their way of life is perfect. What I want to recommend are some Amish principles:

1.  They have preserved their families and communities.


2.  They have maintained the practices of neighborhood.


3.  They have maintained the domestic arts of kitchen and garden, house- hold and homestead. 


4.  They have limited their use of technology so as not to displace or alienate available human labor or available free sources of power (the sun, wind, water, and so on).


5.  They have limited their farms to a scale that is compatible both with the practice of neighborhood and with the optimum use of low-power technology.


6.  By the practices and limits already mentioned, they have limited their costs.


7.  They have educated their children to live at home and serve their communities. 


8.  They esteem farming as both a practical art and a spiritual discipline.