"Sustainable agriculture is creating a farm that your children will want" says Joel Salatin, a 3rd generation organic livestock farmer. In an idyllic location like Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, one might imagine that "romancing the next generation" to stay on the farm would be a simple task. In Joel's view however, modern approaches to agriculture have made even the greenest pastures seem fruitless.

"We can talk all day about the environment and clean food, but if our farms are not fun, not profitable, or too much work - our children won't want them and we're spitting in the wind. Romancing the next generation is the ultimate test of sustainability."

Joel Salatin

Joel is a nationally renowned speaker on organic farming and "relationship marketing." He is on a mission to develop emotionally, economically and environmentally enhanced agricultural enterprises, and facilitate their duplication around the world. Part of that goal is to produce the best food in the world.

Joel espouses an agricultural paradigm shift that sees plants and animals as partners rather than units of production. "Let the plants and animals fill their natural niche with full distinctive expression. The starting point for animal husbandry is to let the animal express its uniqueness."

"For example, we entice the pig to work for us, replacing machinery and petroleum in the process. In the winter, we bed cows in the hayshed every couple days with straw, wood chips or leaves to lock soluble nutrients with carbon, to minimize leaching and vaporization. In between the layers of bedding pack, we add whole corn. In the spring, when cows go back out to graze, we turn pigs into that anaerobic bedding pack which has fermented the corn. It entices them to root through the deep bedding, aerate the pack, and initiate aerobic composting. This saves the step of windrowing compost. It creates a perfect and passionate living environment for a pig, and replaces tractors that rust (depreciate) with 'pigaerators' that grow (appreciate)."

"Getting in sync with natural processes completely changes the bottom line. So we calve when the deer are fawning, grow chickens in the spring while wild turkeys and grouse are raising their babies. By simply mimicking what nature does, we save money and generate thousands of dollars a year in revenue. It's amazing how creative farmers can be at spending money in the wrong places."

According to Joel, the cost/benefit ratio on the average farm is $4 of inputs for every $1 in profits. This reflects the growing trend of corporate agribusiness - replacing animal husbandry, land stewardship and wholesome, honest relationships with commodity production based on scale and volume. Joel bucks the trend, boasting a ratio of 50 cents to the dollar on his 550 acre farm, an 800% improvement. "When you eliminate the things that rust and depreciate, the profit potential becomes size neutral. Instead of paying for machinery to run the farm, we let animals do the work."

"With healthy, happy animals we have no vet bills and our farm runs on tax-free solar dollars. We also get a premium price for everything we sell, it's just more tasty and nutritious!"

Joel's profit ratio is further enhanced by "relationship marketing." "Agriculture spends a lot of time and money cultivating markets in Sri Lanka and Timbuktu. How about knocking on a neighbor's door and offering some good healthy food? We need marketing models that encourage consumers to rebuild the link to 'grandpa's farm' and develop relationships that let us learn from each other. Right now we have mutual disrespect, ignorance and antagonism, and that's no way to solve anything." With his uniquely-named animal products, such as "Salad Bar Beef," "Pastured Poultry" and "Pigaerator Pork," Salatin sells to 400 local families and 30 area restaurants.

"As we structure our farm so that more and more of our income comes from information and marketing, we insulate ourselves from the farmers' greatest variables: weather, pestilence, disease and price. Our customers are not nearly as susceptible to drought as our crops are. It's easy to salvage small amounts of a crop, which can net more than large volumes if we add value through processing and marketing."

Direct marketing starts with the first step of production: "Our animals don't do drugs. Humane production is important to people when they can see your operation. This is a significant value-added to consumers. Restaurants are paying me three times what they normally pay for 'fecal factory' eggs."

"Pigerators"

Joel constantly draws the distinction between his "plant, animal and community-friendly production system" and "inhumane factory farms." "If you want agriculture that does not pump animals full of drugs and hormones, pollute the water, erode the soil and stink up the air," he says, "vote with your pocketbook and quit patronizing the conventional food industry - seek out and support your local alternative farmer."

Unfortunately, he notes, it's not as easy as it should be to buy organic meat direct from the farm. "Producers and consumers ought to be able to do business, eye-to-eye, without government interference. Yet in order to sell one pound of sausage from a Thanksgiving hog-killing to a neighbor, we need a multiple-permitted $300,000 facility. It's time for entrepreneurial farmers, consumers who want clean food, and anyone else who loves freedom, to stand up and say the Food and Drug Administration wears no clothes."

"Our paradigm so influences what we are willing to see. It limits the questions we ask, and the questions limit our answers. We are asking, 'How can we produce beef with organic grain in a feedlot?' Instead, we should ask: 'Why have a feedlot? Why feed ruminants grain?' Imagine what it would do to the Chicago Board of Trade and the multinational corporations if the 70 percent of all the US acreage currently devoted to grains for livestock were returned to perennial polycultures managed for high-density, short duration grazing by livestock?"

With the success Joel has enjoyed on his farm, it’s clear that not only is he asking new questions, he’s finding new answers.

Joel Salatin
Polyface, Inc.
Rt. 1, Box 281
Swoope, VA 24479
Tel: (540) 885-3590

[Table of Contents]