Four Farms - No. 3 Polyface Inc.

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This farm is something really special.  Regular readers of this blog (are there any?) will have heard the Joel Salatin name before.  If not from my scribblings, from Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma or the film Food Inc.

Pollan's book was my first contact with the man.  I finished the section ..... and immediately went back to the start and read it again.  Joel was just as compelling each of the two times I saw (and listened to) him in Australia.  And, of course, in his various books.

Here we were in Swoope, Virginia at Polyface Farm.  Would it be as good as advertised? 

Joel always makes a point of saying how it's whether something works that matters.  I've always been a bit more of a William Morris fan.  He said “Have nothing in your house (or on your farm) that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.  He didn't say the bit in brackets - but he might have.


So Polyface is a working farm - and limited attention goes into making it look 'tidy'.  Because you come first to the yard there is the usual junk about of someone who is a bit of a scavenger - like 3 second hand muck spreaders which, I assume, providing parts for the working one.  Clearly most things on the farm are home built from least cost materials and for purpose.  


My reaction to this is nuanced.  Part (mostly) respect for the purpose and energy that is obvious - with a nagging feeling that, if it was me, I'd at least put the 3 old muck spreaders in a line and cover them up.

 It's when we moved a way from the farm yard that my enthusiasm for what I saw became pretty much unqualified.

The first photo looks back along one of the fields.  You can see the trees along each side of the field (optimizing edge effect), the quality of the recently grazed pasture, evidence of the compost that has been spread ... it was  just beautiful!

The second photo is of one generation of the broiler chickens.  Two offset rows of shelters each with about 50 Cornish Cross chickens in them.  Polyface is criticised for using this modern breed - and they're not a particularly attractive bird.  Joel justifies it by saying the performance of the bird (to kill weight in 7 or 8 weeks) is so superior - the meat type is similar (but better) than what his customers usually eat - and the birds are allowed to express their 'chickeness' and are definitely not ill-treated.  In the end they are still an ugly animal - unable to stand up almost due to their grotesquely large breast.  

Looking behind the shelters, you see exactly the effect on the pasture Joel describes.  Grass grazed down, manure spread about - pasture about to 'take off'. 

Here are a few hundred turkeys.  You can see here a bit of the utilitarianism of the infrastructure.  Things are built for purpose - and rebuilt to better serve the purpose as ideas occur.  The energy of the whole enterprise just shines. 

Having heard Joel speak and read his books I can see (I think) that the current challenge intriguing the Salatin family is just how far they can 'scale up' to feed more people.  After half a lifetime on a previously degraded property they are now starting to look at just what the addition of extra labour units will do to lift productivity.

 
Those labour units come partly in the form of low cost 'interns', but also in the form of other employed people in the shop and in delivering - and doing other things attached in one way or other to the enterprise. 

My perception is that Polyface is now examining the question / criticism often levelled at the local food movement:  "How will you guys feed the world without industrial agriculture?"

I'm interested in the answer.  And I applaud Polyface for the ambition of its vision.  By the time I was up with the chicken houses and pigs, I was just in awe of the intelligence of the place.  I'd forgotten the 'untidy' yard and was immersed in it all.

Was I affected by the fact that we were there on two lovely days at the best time of the year for any farm (Spring to early Summer)?  I don't think so.  David Holmgren said about Polyface something like "It's the best at scale example of permaculture agriculture there is."  I agree!

I love pigs.  They are the most curious, fun loving animals there are.  The ones we met at Polyface were having the time of their life breaking in new pasture.  They have access to grain and water, but take part of their sustenance from rooting around in the woods.

The next photo shows what happens after the pigs go out, some trees have been harvested and cleared, cattle have grazed, poulty has followed through.  You start to get a beautiful pasture - with some remnant shade trees.

I didn't get the chance to confirm with Joel that he is slowly extending the cultivated part of his farm back into the woods, but I think that is what is happening.  A lot less brutally (and more sustainably) than the first time around - when the woods were cleared and the land cultivated ... until it collapsed (in ecological terms at least) into the state it was when Joel's Dad acquired it.

The final photo shows me with some of the cattle - doing something useful.  The cattle had managed to overturn the mobile trough.  I put it back upright - and tried to let it refill to the point where there was enough weight in it that they wouldn't immediately turn it over again.


There were some thirsty cattle there - and they wanted some water.

We went to Polyface two days in a row.  I could easily go back again and I'm sure I'd notice a whole load of extra things.  

The second day they were slaughtering poultry - a process Joel describes in his books.  It was as civilised and sensible as he says. In the first photo a lovely young woman was actually slaughtering chickens for the first time.  

She had been a Polyface for 4 weeks and had worked on the processing part, but not at the killing cones before.  The chickens are put head down into the cone.  They 'go quiet' when this happens - which allows the head to be stretched slightly and the jugular veins to be cut.  Quick and relatively stress-less.  They were killed less than 100 metres from where they lived a short, content life. 

This has to be better than transporting them to a slaughter facility - like I have to do with my cattle.


I'm reasonably happy that our abbatoir doesn't unnecessarily stress the animals in the slaughter process, but the whole 'to do' of getting them into the yards, transporting them, and penning them up in an unfamiliar place is so much less civilised than what Polyface is doing with its chickens.


As I write this, it's 3 days after we visited Polyface ... but I'm still excited by it.  It was flat out brilliant.
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