Polyface Farm
Encyclopedia
Polyface Farm is a farm
located in rural Swoope, Virginia
, United States
, run by Joel Salatin
and his family. The farm is driven using unconventional methods with the goal of "emotionally, economically and environmentally enhancing agriculture". This farm is where Salatin developed and put into practice many of his most innovative and significant agricultural methods. These include direct-marketing of meats and produce to consumers, pastured-poultry, grass-fed beef and the rotation method which makes his farm more like an ecological system than conventional farming. Polyface Farm operates a farm store on-site where consumers
go to pick up their products.
” attitude towards their products. Salatin encourages people to buy locally to save small businesses. Salatin believes it is advantageous for consumers when they know their farmers and where their food comes from.
Salatin says that his Christian faith informs the way he raises and slaughters the animals on his 500 acres (2 km²) farm. He sees it as his responsibility to honor the animals as creatures that reflect God
’s creative and abiding love, and believes his method is to honor that of God. Salatin is quoted in the book The Omnivore's Dilemma (p.331) as justifying the killing of non-human animals because "people have a soul, animals don't."
Salatin bases his farm's ecosystem on the principle of observing animals' activities in nature and emulating those conditions as closely as possible. Salatin grazes his cattle outdoors within small pastures enclosed by high-tech, electrified fencing that is easily and daily moved at 4pm to ensure that the animals always have fresh grass; grass that has had time, about 100 days, to mature and grow tall, which increases levels of starch. Animal manure fertilizes the pastures and enables Polyface Farm to graze about four times as many cattle as on a conventional farm, thus also saving feed costs. The small size of the pastures forces the cattle to 'mob stock'-to eat all the grass.
Polyface raises pastured meat chickens, egg layers, pigs, turkeys, and rabbits. The diversity in production better utilizes the grass, breaks pathogen
cycles, and creates multiple income streams. The meat chickens are housed in portable field shelters that are moved daily to a fresh "salad bar" of new grass and away from yesterdays droppings. All manure is distributed by the chickens directly onto the field. His egg-laying chickens are housed in mobile trailer-style coops that follow four days after the cattle, when flies in the manure are pupating; the chickens get 15% of their feed from this. While scratching for pupae, the chickens also distribute the cow manure across the field.
Salatin feels that "if you smell manure [on a livestock farm], you are smelling mismanagement." So everything possible is done to allow grass to absorb all the fertilizer left behind by the animals. If animals must be kept inside (to brood young chicks for example), Salatin recommends providing deep bedding of wood chips or sawdust to chemically lock in all the nutrients and smell until they can be spread on the field where the compost can be used by the grass.
Salatin's pastures, barn, and farmhouse are located on land below a nearby pond that "feeds the farm" by using 15 miles (24.1 km) of piping. Salatin also harvests 450 acres (1.8 km²) of woodlands and uses the lumber to construct farm buildings. One of Salatin's principles is that "plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness. Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health."
While Salatin does not sell to supermarkets or ship long distances, Polyface products are available at restaurants (including Chipotle
and Staunton's Zynodoa) and local food sellers like Charlottesville's RelayFoods.com
within a half-day's drive of the farm.
by Michael Pollan
as exemplary sustainable agriculture
, contrasting Polyface Farm favorably to factory farming
. An excerpt of the book was published in the May/June 2006 of Mother Jones. The farm is covered in the August/September 2008 issue of Mother Earth News
. Pollan’s book describes Polyface Farm’s method of exemplary sustainable agriculture as being built on the efficiencies that come from mimicking relationships found in nature and layering one farm enterprise over another on the same base of land. In effect, Joel is farming in time as well as in space—in four dimensions rather than three. He calls this intricate layering “stacking” and points out that “it is exactly the model God used in building nature.” The idea is not to slavishly imitate nature, but to model a natural ecosystem in all its diversity and interdependence, one where all the species “fully express their physiological distinctiveness.”
The farm is also featured in the documentary films Food, Inc.
and Fresh. As well as in episode 3 of the BBC
documentary series Jimmy's Global Harvest.
Polyface Farm is a participant in Humane Farm Animal Care
's Certified Humane Raised and Handled program.
's book Eating Animals
for raising industrial birds, not heritage birds. Reese says of Polyface, "Joel Salatin is doing industrial birds. Call him up and ask him. So he puts them on pasture. It makes no difference. It's like putting a broken-down Honda on the autobahn and saying it's a Porsche." Salatin maintains that this statement is not entirely true. Polyface uses heritage breeds for its egg production. However for meat birds Salatin uses the Cornish cross, the same type of bird used in the industrial system. Salatin candidly admits in his book, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, that the meat bird operation is currently the least sustainable aspect of the farm. Salatin goes on to say that he looks forward to the day that customers are willing to buy (and he is able to raise) a non-industrial meat bird. Reese's critique also aims at Michael Pollan
's view in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma that depicts the farming principles of Polyface as exemplary and sustainable.
Salatin confirmed, in an interview with The Observer
, that he raises non-heritage breed chickens. He explained that he had raised heritage birds for several years, but the poultry from these birds had gained little interest from consumers, and was therefore not economically viable for him.
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
located in rural Swoope, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, run by Joel Salatin
Joel Salatin
Joel F. Salatin is an American farmer, lecturer, and author whose books include You Can Farm and Salad Bar Beef.Salatin raises livestock using holistic methods of animal husbandry, free of potentially harmful chemicals, on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley...
and his family. The farm is driven using unconventional methods with the goal of "emotionally, economically and environmentally enhancing agriculture". This farm is where Salatin developed and put into practice many of his most innovative and significant agricultural methods. These include direct-marketing of meats and produce to consumers, pastured-poultry, grass-fed beef and the rotation method which makes his farm more like an ecological system than conventional farming. Polyface Farm operates a farm store on-site where consumers
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...
go to pick up their products.
Practices and background
Polyface maintains a “localLocal food
Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...
” attitude towards their products. Salatin encourages people to buy locally to save small businesses. Salatin believes it is advantageous for consumers when they know their farmers and where their food comes from.
Salatin says that his Christian faith informs the way he raises and slaughters the animals on his 500 acres (2 km²) farm. He sees it as his responsibility to honor the animals as creatures that reflect God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
’s creative and abiding love, and believes his method is to honor that of God. Salatin is quoted in the book The Omnivore's Dilemma (p.331) as justifying the killing of non-human animals because "people have a soul, animals don't."
Salatin bases his farm's ecosystem on the principle of observing animals' activities in nature and emulating those conditions as closely as possible. Salatin grazes his cattle outdoors within small pastures enclosed by high-tech, electrified fencing that is easily and daily moved at 4pm to ensure that the animals always have fresh grass; grass that has had time, about 100 days, to mature and grow tall, which increases levels of starch. Animal manure fertilizes the pastures and enables Polyface Farm to graze about four times as many cattle as on a conventional farm, thus also saving feed costs. The small size of the pastures forces the cattle to 'mob stock'-to eat all the grass.
Polyface raises pastured meat chickens, egg layers, pigs, turkeys, and rabbits. The diversity in production better utilizes the grass, breaks pathogen
Pathogen
A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
cycles, and creates multiple income streams. The meat chickens are housed in portable field shelters that are moved daily to a fresh "salad bar" of new grass and away from yesterdays droppings. All manure is distributed by the chickens directly onto the field. His egg-laying chickens are housed in mobile trailer-style coops that follow four days after the cattle, when flies in the manure are pupating; the chickens get 15% of their feed from this. While scratching for pupae, the chickens also distribute the cow manure across the field.
Salatin feels that "if you smell manure [on a livestock farm], you are smelling mismanagement." So everything possible is done to allow grass to absorb all the fertilizer left behind by the animals. If animals must be kept inside (to brood young chicks for example), Salatin recommends providing deep bedding of wood chips or sawdust to chemically lock in all the nutrients and smell until they can be spread on the field where the compost can be used by the grass.
Salatin's pastures, barn, and farmhouse are located on land below a nearby pond that "feeds the farm" by using 15 miles (24.1 km) of piping. Salatin also harvests 450 acres (1.8 km²) of woodlands and uses the lumber to construct farm buildings. One of Salatin's principles is that "plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness. Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health."
While Salatin does not sell to supermarkets or ship long distances, Polyface products are available at restaurants (including Chipotle
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. is a chain of restaurants in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada specializing in burritos and tacos, founded by Steve Ells in 1993 and based in Denver, Colorado...
and Staunton's Zynodoa) and local food sellers like Charlottesville's RelayFoods.com
RelayFoods.com
Retail Relay, Inc., branded RelayFoods.com since 2010, is a privately held American online grocery service operating in select US cities. The company is headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia.- History :...
within a half-day's drive of the farm.
Media
Polyface Farm was featured in the book The Omnivore's DilemmaThe Omnivore's Dilemma
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book by Michael Pollan published in 2006. In the book, Pollan asks the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. As omnivores – the most unselective eaters – we humans are faced with a...
by Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...
as exemplary sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
, contrasting Polyface Farm favorably to factory farming
Factory farming
Factory farming is a term referring to the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory — a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption...
. An excerpt of the book was published in the May/June 2006 of Mother Jones. The farm is covered in the August/September 2008 issue of Mother Earth News
Mother Earth News
Mother Earth News is a bi-monthly American magazine that has a circulation of 475,000. It is based in Topeka, Kansas.Approaching environmental problems from a down-to-earth, practical, how-to standpoint, Mother Earth News has, since the magazine’s founding in 1970, been a pioneer in the promotion...
. Pollan’s book describes Polyface Farm’s method of exemplary sustainable agriculture as being built on the efficiencies that come from mimicking relationships found in nature and layering one farm enterprise over another on the same base of land. In effect, Joel is farming in time as well as in space—in four dimensions rather than three. He calls this intricate layering “stacking” and points out that “it is exactly the model God used in building nature.” The idea is not to slavishly imitate nature, but to model a natural ecosystem in all its diversity and interdependence, one where all the species “fully express their physiological distinctiveness.”
The farm is also featured in the documentary films Food, Inc.
Food, Inc.
Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and...
and Fresh. As well as in episode 3 of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary series Jimmy's Global Harvest.
Polyface Farm is a participant in Humane Farm Animal Care
Humane Farm Animal Care
Humane Farm Animal Care was established to promote and administer its certification and labeling program, Certified Humane Raised & Handled, for meat, dairy, eggs, and poultry raised under its animal care standards. It is a non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors and retains a...
's Certified Humane Raised and Handled program.
Criticism
Salatin is criticized, by poultry farmer Frank Reese, in Jonathan Safran FoerJonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer is an American author best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...
's book Eating Animals
Eating Animals
Eating Animals is the third book by the American writer Jonathan Safran Foer, published in 2009. It is a work of non-fiction.-Themes:Foer explores the topics of factory farming and commercial fisheries...
for raising industrial birds, not heritage birds. Reese says of Polyface, "Joel Salatin is doing industrial birds. Call him up and ask him. So he puts them on pasture. It makes no difference. It's like putting a broken-down Honda on the autobahn and saying it's a Porsche." Salatin maintains that this statement is not entirely true. Polyface uses heritage breeds for its egg production. However for meat birds Salatin uses the Cornish cross, the same type of bird used in the industrial system. Salatin candidly admits in his book, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, that the meat bird operation is currently the least sustainable aspect of the farm. Salatin goes on to say that he looks forward to the day that customers are willing to buy (and he is able to raise) a non-industrial meat bird. Reese's critique also aims at Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...
's view in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma that depicts the farming principles of Polyface as exemplary and sustainable.
Salatin confirmed, in an interview with The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, that he raises non-heritage breed chickens. He explained that he had raised heritage birds for several years, but the poultry from these birds had gained little interest from consumers, and was therefore not economically viable for him.
External links
- Official website
- Video of a talk at the Berkeley School of Journalism
- View of Polyface Farm from Google Maps
- Map to Polyface Farm
- Polyface and Sustainability
- Flavor Magazine (Salatin writes a column, "Rebel with a Cause," for this bi-monthly magazine focused on the DC foodshed)
- Interview With Joel Salatin, The Observer, Guardian UK)