MiddletownJournal.com

Farming in the shadow of the 'burbs By Chris Dumond Butler County Bureau LIBERTY TOWNSHIP -- Driving past the Niedermans' farm on LeSourdsville-West Chester Road 50 years ago, passersby might have seen Robert Niederman chasing a dairy cow on the family's 150-acre farm. In 2005, drivers might still catch a glimpse of a Niederman running through the field, but it's more likely that he's running from a guy with a paintball gun. The family still farms. In fact, operations have grown from about 150 acres to more than 300 acres. But as much of the land in Liberty Township stopped growing corn and started growing houses, the family adapted. "When we lived here, we diversified the dairy by raising hogs, soybeans and some hay," Robert Niederman said. "Now, diversifying on the farm means something else." In the 12 years since his son Bob and son's wife Bethann took over the farm, the population in township has grown in population from about 9,300 to about 23,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The family stopped raising dairy cows and put the land in corn and soybeans with a few steers for good measure. It still wasn't enough, though.

VIDEO INTERVIEW Listen to Robert Niederman, his son Bob and his son's wife Bethann talk about the changes that have taken place on their family's farm over the years. • MPG (5.0 MB) • Windows Media (2.2 MB)   HELP WATCHING THE VIDEO • MPEG Videos: You will need an MPEG-compatible player, such as Quicktime. • Windows Media Videos: You will need an WMV-compatible player, such as Windows Media Player. • Mac users: This video may not be compatible with Internet Explorer for Mac. Other Mac browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, should allow you to view the video.

"This is the lifestyle we've chosen for ourselves and for our family, but the farm wasn't generating enough income to support our family," Bethann Niederman said. "So, we needed to find other income that would help us stay on the farm in Liberty Township."

As it turns out, open spaces can be a premium in a township laden with residential subdivisions.

Boats can't be parked in some neighborhoods. Paintball games became popular, but weren't exactly backyard-safe for suburbanites. And, as the mental disconnect between the field and the supermarket shelf grows, the family has found that people are willing to pay to come visit their roots.

Now the farm is supplemented by boat and RV storage, a bed and breakfast, corn mazes and hay rides in the fall and the other family business: Paintball Country.

"If you're entrepreneur, you can make this work for you," Butler County Extension Agent Steve Bartels said.

Some, like the Niedermans, have profited through agritourism, Bartels said. Others start growing market-friendly vegetables and fruit they can sell directly to masses of readily available customers.

Stephen Janos grew up in West Chester Township when the area around Union Centre Boulevard was still farmland -- fertile farmland at that. Though he still farms land in southeastern Butler County, he moved his family out to Sommerville nearly a decade ago.

"When I went to Lakota, it was an all-country school," Janos said. "Look at it now. I wanted my kids to grow up in an area like I did and Talawanda (school district) was like Lakota when I went to school."

He jokes with the handful of farmers still working in the area that "this is where real men go to farm," but says the challenges are daunting.

Congested traffic in West Chester and Liberty townships means he has to be careful when he moves equipment.

"People drive too fast and too dangerously around ag equipment," Janos said. "Please go slowly, In some places, we just can't pull over. Trying to move machinery around is a harrowing thing."

Bethann Niederman said a compact car pulled out in front of her husband's tractor a few weeks ago in a near-miss accident. The tractor, she said, would have been fine, but the car would have been totalled.

Litter thrown from passing cars, especially glass bottles or metal can cause hundreds of dollars in damages, Bartels said. A punctured tractor tire can cost $600 or more to replace, he said. Trespassers onto farms can also be a liability in developed areas.

Like many, Janos rents his farmland and is fearful that one day, the landowners might change their minds about whether to sell to developers. While controversial, the decision to sell out is one many farmers say they understand.

"As landowners get older, sometimes their kids make different choices for the ground," Bob Niederman said. "What we pay for land can't compare to what a developer is going to pay for that land."

Though rates vary, farmers pay between $70 and $100 per acre to rent land in Butler County. Developers may pay 400 times that to buy that same acre, Bartels said.

"In 1960, you could buy a good farm for $400 an acre," he said. "Even taking inflation into account, pressure to sell land for $40,000 an acre or more in that area has made it almost economically impossible for farmers to continue to farm in that area.

"If they're serious about the next generation farming, they can sell there and buy three times as much land anywhere in the state of Ohio."

Robert Niederman said he's had a few offers to sell to developers over the years, but has turned them down. At some point, he said, the viability of full-time farming in the southeastern townships may be a matter more of principle than economics.

"I'm sure if we ever decided to sell the farm, it wouldn't be hard to find someone to buy it," he said. "But we're not interested in that. Once one asks and you say no, the message kind of makes its way to the others and they leave you alone, at least for a while."

Contact Chris Dumond at (513) 820-2025, or e-mail him at cdumond@coxohio.com.