On a modest, idyllic 550 acres in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm has given the modern food industry a lesson in agrarian integrity. On his pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm, Salatin raises animals with ethically and ecologically sound methods that mimic natural movement patterns and preserve the landscape.
The self-declared “Christian-Libertarian-Environmentalist-Capitalist-Lunatic” has entered the national spotlight as a main subject in Michael Pollan’s bestseller, The Ominivore’s Dilemma and the upcoming film Food, Inc. The author of six of his own books, Salatin is not shy about his beliefs. He bluntly speaks out about the disgraces he sees in the current industrial food system, and lately he spends about one-third of his time giving lectures.
The Polyface Farm land was purchased by Salatin’s parents in 1961, and today the farm remains a small family-based operation, anchored by Salatin’s son Daniel and a meager staff of fewer than two dozen, which includes interns and apprentices.
At his farm, Salatin offers complete transparency. He invites his customers to visit the farm and see how the animals live. Despite a great increase in demand for Polyface’s sustainably produced meats, shipping farm-fresh meats is not an option, as it goes against Salatin’s principle of recreating a local food chain. He invited BRO to the farm in late spring.
BRO: What should people know about the meat they get at Polyface?
JS: Our cows are moved every day to a fresh paddock, so we’re mimicking the patterns of herbivores in nature. They’re moving away from yesterday’s manure. We take the natural, moving, mobbing, mowing pattern as a template. Fertile soils of the world have been built with herbivores. This grazing allows grass to grow through its cycle. If everyone practiced this pattern, we’d sequester all of the carbon that’s been emitted in the industrial age in fewer than 10 years.
Good food should be aesthetically pleasing from field to fork. We’re standing here among thousands of chickens with no odor. A good food production model doesn’t force a huge landscape change. It’s gentle on the land. It actually nests into its ecological umbilical cord. We only touch each square foot of land once a year with these birds. We move them every morning, so they get fresh salad every day, away from yesterday’s excrement. This is to eliminate pathogens that affect crowded chickens. We also don’t want to exceed the carrying capacity of the soil.
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discusses stewardship of the land, the burden of government regulations, and what's wrong with "organic" farming. See also
