Staff photo / Stephanie Elverd Steven Montgomery, left, owner of Lamppost Farms in Columbiana, hosted Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and other local farmers in a roundtable talk about how the Norfolk Southern train derailment has impacted the agriculture community in Columbiana County on Monday. Brown spent the afternoon touring Montgomery’s farm.

By STEPHANIE ELVERD

(Lisbon) Morning Journal

COLUMBIANA — All things considered, local farmer Steven Montgomery considers himself pretty lucky.

His business, a premier grass-fed meat and organic produce farm located just across the Mahoning County line in Columbiana, escaped any damage from February’s Norfolk Southern train derailment. He shared his story with visiting U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who met with Montgomery and a group of other area farmers for a roundtable at Lamppost Farms on Monday.

“There were no effects that we saw here,” Montgomery said. “Our cattle ate and drank as normal. Our chickens laid eggs and didn’t stop. At this point, all the testing has said we are in the clear and, frankly, the kind of agriculture we practice is resilient agriculture. It is able to process a lot of things anyway. So we expect it to thrive in tragedy. We know the impact on our community was terrible, but creation is set up to be a thriving environment and that’s the story we want to keep telling.”

Montgomery could see the plume hanging over East Palestine from the rolling hills of Lamppost Farms in February, but that plume moved away from his livelihood, not toward it. The smoke never came close, but the stigma did. And while it’s been over three months since that plume blew the other direction and dissipated, the stigma still lingers.

“Our neighbor was in a group up in Youngstown talking about food security long term, and they said ‘Why don’t you buy from our neighbors at Lamppost Farms?’ and people were like ‘No. That’s too close to East Palestine.’ That’s not what we want to hear,” Montgomery said. “That’s not the true story. The true story is that these animals are still very healthy. They are living the lives they were created to live and producing a good product as a result.”

Brown, a member of the Agriculture Committee, said the federal government owes it to the agricultural community in and around East Palestine to help where help is needed. He is also working on a bill to help all local farmers around the state.

“During a hearing last week, I got a commitment from the woman (Xochitl Torres Small) who will be confirmed as the undersecretary of agriculture to come to this community and learn what we really need to be doing in small town America, especially small town America that has been subjected this,” he said. “And we’ve been working on the local foods bill to make sure people like the Montgomerys can sell their food locally. It’s often better quality often. It’s often safer and then any money stays inside Columbiana County or Youngstown or Canton or Akron or Cleveland or wherever.”

Brown introduced the Local Farms and Food Act of 2023. The legislation would simplify applications for local food programs, increase investments and sustain impactful nutrition incentives.

The bill, along with the commitment of the Department of Agriculture, could help Montgomery absorb any loss that already has occurred as a result of the derailment and any loss that may occur in the future. While lucky, Lamppost Farms hasn’t been completely immune to the rail disaster.

“Initially we were knocked down pretty quick,” he said. “We saw about a 50 percent decrease in the first couple weeks and if that projected, we were going to have to make hard decisions about cash flow and cutting staff and thinking about all the other things that were involved.”

But thanks to the support of Columbiana County, the farm has rebounded. Lamppost may have gotten knocked down, but it wasn’t knocked out.

“We’ve seen a comeback from that. That was from our regular customers and the people in the community who wanted us to stay here so we did,” Montgomery said. “There was almost a bump past our averages which was great. But when we look at a trend we are still somewhat behind our normal and we definitely haven’t hit the growth projections that we thought we would. But we are thankful for the customers in the community.”

Montgomery still doesn’t know what the big picture is. Lamppost is just now beginning to process this year’s products. Turkeys are the farm’s best seller. He is hopeful poultry numbers will reach or exceed normal sales, but it’s going to take a while for that information to come to light. That’s why Montgomery believes prolonged support is necessary to see the East Palestine-area farmers through this crisis.

“I say stay in the game with us. This is a long-term event,” he said. “We won’t know the effects until we have a year of sales that we can look at. Those things take time to know, but I also think there are things in the farm bill that will help the process of building more resiliency into agriculture here. I think we are moving in the right direction.”

selverd@mojonew.com