“Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey, when along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.”
For some farmers in northern Pennsylvania about 10 years ago, the “spider” was a government agricultural regulation that discouraged small milking operations. It forced farmers to “modernize” by demanding that dairy farms install bulk storage tanks requiring tractor trailer trucks for milk pick-up. To meet these specifications, farmers had to upgrade their equipment.
The spider’s edict threatened disaster for both small farmers who could not afford to upgrade and for Amish farmers who, for religious reasons, were unable to modernize. Discouraged, many farmers sold their herds or turned to veal production instead. But a group of about 10 farmers — Amish and non-Amish — held tight to their tuffets, forming a co-op and beginning their own creamery, producing raw milk cheese from
