By JONATHAN CRIBBS
Oct. 17, 2025

A quiet but rapid migration of Amish farmers from Lancaster County, Pa., into northern Maryland is reshaping the region’s farmland market and putting new pressure on local producers already struggling with high prices and limited inventory.

Since the pandemic, dozens of Amish families have bought farms across northern Carroll, Frederick and Cecil counties, according to state records, real-estate agents and farm organizations. The movement reflects a broader demographic expansion from Pennsylvania, where farmland scarcity and rising prices are pushing younger generations to look elsewhere.

“This community is growing very quickly,” said Edsel Burdge, a research associate at Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies in Pennsylvania. “Somehow or another it got around by word of mouth. My sense is it just snowballed.”

Among the newcomers is Amos Stoltzfus, 29, who left Leola, Pa., last year to buy a 158-acre farm near Emmitsburg with his father. He took 53 acres for himself, paying roughly $13,000 per acre — a fraction of Lancaster County’s $40,000–$60,000 prices lately.

Before the move, Stoltzfus built rocking chairs for a wholesaler with two other Amish craftsmen, turning out hundreds each year from raw lumber. Farming had always been the goal, he said, and when a property finally became available, he didn’t wait.

He is now building a 48-by-60-foot chicken house that will hold 18,000 organic birds, which will graze on more than 40 acres while he raises goats and hay on the rest. Neighbors told him the previous owner hadn’t fertilized or double-cropped, but he plans to change that.

“We’ll put manure down and grow a lot of nice crop,” he said.

Lancaster County Farm Bureau President Kaleb Long said many families like Stoltzfus’s are leaving because few options remain at home. Development and competition among large family operations have driven land prices to some of the highest levels in the nation. Meanwhile, the average Amish family has about five children, but up to 10 isn’t uncommon, according to the Young Center.

That drives rapid growth. From 2000 to 2024, Lancaster County’s Amish population grew to more than 43,000 — a 155% increase, dwarfing the overall county’s 20% growth. Now, a young generation of farmers is moving south.

“Four or five brothers can’t all take over Dad’s farm, so they need to find a place to go,” Long said.

For families like Jacob Fisher’s, the search for affordable land has become unavoidable. The 55-year-old dairyman from Conestoga, Pa., bought a property near Hampstead last December after hearing about it from a younger brother who moved nearby in 2021 — one of the first to settle in the area.

He divided the Carroll County property into smaller parcels for family members and began hauling manure to rebuild the thinner soil. It isn’t as fertile as the limestone ground he left behind, but he said it can produce “almost like Lancaster County if we get rain.”

Fisher estimated that at least 50 Amish families have relocated to Carroll and Frederick counties in recent years, with others settling just north in Glen Rock, Pa.

In Emmitsburg, 24-year-old Henry Lapp said his family moved from Bird-in-Hand, Pa., last fall after finding a 45-acre farm they could manage. His father bought the property, and Lapp — also a father — grows corn, hay, pumpkins and tobacco. He said the decision was as much about family as finances.

“The main thing is children,” he said. “Once the children grow up, I want them to know what it’s like.”

Regional real-estate agents say the Amish presence has become a significant force in the market. Eldersburg agent Tim Dulany has represented several buyers and said many deals happen before properties are listed publicly. The families, he said, tend to know what they want and move quickly once they find it.

“They’re pretty savvy when it comes to determining what the property’s worth,” Dulany said.

The result has been a faster, tighter market. Carville Mace, who farms near Taneytown, said farmland that once sold for about $10,000 an acre now brings more than twice that. Negotiating with sellers used to be common, he said, but many now set $20,000 per acre as the floor.

“We’ve basically been priced out of the market,” Mace said.

Matt Dell, who farms near Manchester, said he has seen the same pattern. He has two sons — one 21 and another 13 — and hopes to keep expanding his farm for them. He said he appreciates the Amish and sells hay to several of them. Most of the newcomers are young farmers backed by family capital, he said.

“The ones that are coming down are all young. Their dads have all the money,” he said.

Frederick County Farm Bureau President David Burrier said the newcomers have clearly influenced prices but also revived older farms.

“They have raised the price, no question about it,” he said. “It’s another player — a big player.”

What began as a handful of families settling near Littlestown, Pa., just north of the Maryland border has become a rapidly expanding network that now spans northern Maryland. Burdge said the first families arrived around 2020. Since then, the population has grown to four church districts — an unusually fast expansion for a new Amish community.

The Amish have a long history in the state. Its oldest settlement in Maryland was founded in Garrett County in 1850. Its largest, which spans St. Mary’s and Charles counties, formed in 1940. There are five total settlements, two of which have launched in the last five years. The Young Center estimates that the Carroll County settlement, which also includes Adams County, Pa., began in 2020 and has an estimated population of 225. Another in Garrett County began last year.

Burdge said the movement mirrors Amish growth elsewhere as its national population doubles roughly every 20 years. More than 400,000 live in the United States and Canada.

“There’s no reason to think they won’t continue that rate of growth,” he said.

The transformation has stirred mixed feelings among Maryland farmers, who respect the newcomers’ discipline and ingenuity but feel squeezed by rising land costs. Mace called it a challenge.

“It came out of nowhere, and we’ll figure out how to deal with it,” he said. “We’ll be OK probably.”

Fisher, who still travels between his Maryland farm and home in Conestoga, said he feels for young, so-called “English” farmers — an Amish term for outsiders — who suddenly find themselves in competition with people like him.

“I feel bad for the English farmers who get outbid,” he said. “Everybody wants Lancaster County ground, but we cannot afford to buy farms in Lancaster County for our sons anymore, and our sons want to farm.”

(This article was published in the Delmarva Farmer in Easton, Md.)