“Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: “Love. They must do it for love.” Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide. I have an idea that a lot of farmers have gone to a lot of trouble merely to be self-employed to live at least a part of their lives without a boss.” – Wendell Berry

I grew up in New York City, with a stereotypical city persons respect for farmers. In other words, I considered farmers to be a caricature or a cartoon, with a red neck, buck-teeth, and a piece of straw between their lips, unable to put together a coherent sentence.  

Kinda like this guy. 

Over the years, that has of course, evolved after attending farmers markets, workshops, reading literature, and all those other ways we come to open our minds., but it took a long time to fully understand (and I’m not sure I even do yet) how brilliantly intellectual and intelligent many (if not most!) farmers are.  Farmers, particularly those involved in permaculture and other self-sufficient eco-systems, are not only required to be incredibly well educated as they go against common wisdom, but must live with a passion unlike most we have seen, since they are continuously fighting the norm in their industry to create a better world for the rest of us.

Over the weekend with Joel Salatin, I met some extraordinary people with perspectives drastically different from my own, and have asked them to write for me.  I have also reached out to some wonderful writers in the field, to share their thoughts and experiences.  I hope to be able to offer on a frequent basis the works of these farmers, who often seem so disconnected from our urban or suburban life, but who are fighting an extraordinary and deeply personal battle to rectify the damage we have done to the earth over the past 100 years.  I hope you will take the time to read their thoughts, experiences and often fascinating perspectives.  If you have any particular author you’d like to hear from, or topic you would like to learn about, please let me know.  I’d love to find someone to share it with you. 

This coming Tuesday, I feel privileged to be able to start this series with an essay from Harvey Ussery, author of The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers.  His book, an encyclopedic tome about the art of raising poultry, contains an essay about the morality of raising chickens that fascinated me.  After reaching out to him, he sent me a slightly more general version of the same theme, that expanded to the more open thoughts of raising meat. I’m so looking forward to sharing it with you.

Stay tuned for day 2 of Joel Salatin workshop!

Today was a life changing day.  I spent it with one of my true heroes, the self professed Christian Libertarian Environmentalist Capitalist Lunatic farmer himself, Joel Salatin. The masterclass took place in Gatton, QLD, with 200 other folks from all walks of life, from the hippie city farmer with dreads to the curmudgeonly old timers with 10,000 heads of cattle.

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Joel’s eighth book, “Folks, This Ain’t Normal” takes us on an eye opening journey of what is really going on in the American food system, why it’s so unsustainable, and why a return to the local farm movement wouldn’t be bucolic or idyllic, but necessary.  In the book, he gives a number of helpful pointers (his previous books, particularly those devoted to raising cattle and poultry, give more) but I was hungry to learn how one could actually do this on a small scale. His farm feeds 6000, my dream farm (at least as of the day before yesterday) would feed around ten (for the Jewish holidays, of course!).

We met at the Lockyer Valley cultural center, a wonderful venue in Gatton, QLD (Gatton doesn’t require a visit, as I’d been warned by many Queenslanders before me.) We dove into it, after hearing from the lovely Georgie from RegenAg farms about their amazing sounding ventures, and from FoodConnect, a CSA movement sprouting out of Brisbane.

While I won’t go into all the details that Joel spoke about, as that would remove the incredible nuance and hillarity with which he spoke, suffice it to say, he spoke with humor, grace, and one of the deepest and most enduring senses of hope that I had ever heard of.  In his book, his tone can feel a touch abrasive (particularly since I am a reformed version of everything he attacks – the ‘environmentalist’ who donates to GreenPeace but shops at the supermarket, buys a new prius, and merely assuaging my liberal guilt by nibbling at the edges of the farmers market) but in person, it was much less so.  He is still deeply opinionated, but he seemed to want absolutely every person there to succeed and grow in whatever capacity was available to them.  He made me want to expand my farm (which, as most of you know, currently consists of about 20 containers filled with herbs and vegetables, so read: not too hard to expand) into more than just my dream farm, but perhaps a place that could indeed be a tribute to the fertility and verdancy of the earth.

To close, I’ll share a few Joel “quotable quotes” from the day, as well as the Guiding Principles of Polyface.  When he read the Guiding Principles, I couldn’t help but think, “what would happen if every farm in America took these guiding principles as gospel?”  We would be in a drastically different position, indeed.

“I have opposable thumbs and a big brain – does that inherently make me a rapist? Or am I here to help and caress the ecological womb, to help it become verdant, fertile and beautiful?”

“We have a multigenerational inertia towards [farming] failure. We must change paradigms.”

“If the average age of an organization is 35 and older, the organization is in decline.”

“East brings moral and holistic why, and west brings innovative, technological how.”

“Good enough is perfect.”

“Turkeys have one goal in life – to find a more creative way to die.”‘

On ticks, parasites, and weeds – “Every problem, be it financial, weather, parasites, or weeds – it’s our fault.  Don’t assume the cow is pharmacologically disadvantaged – it’s our fault, and usually symptomatic of the lack of diversity and movement of the animals.”

“If your farmer drove up in a new BMW, would you begrudge him that? If you think your doctor or lawyer deserves a BMW more than the person who puts food on your plate, you need to check your priorities.”

“Don’t worry about who is going to do the work, worry about what work needs to be done and how to heal the land.”

Guiding Principles of Polyface

1. A farm should build soil, not deplete it.
2. Perennials are vital, annuals are incidental.  Annuals include grain. Eat perennial fed herbivores (cows, etc.) more often than chickens and other annual fed omnivores.
3. Ecological forgiveness – fertility should be in sourced, not outsourced.
4. All functional ecologies have animal participation, and animals MOVE.  This drives design and innovation of portable infrastructure.
5. Sanitation occurs in two ways: Rest and sunshine. Two 21 day host-free periods a year breaks the pathogen cycle, ideally with multiple species in that space when the animals are out. A spread out, multi-species model is often healthier per species. Vibrant decomposition – compost, earth worms, can clear all problems with vibrant decomposition, deep bedding is required.
6. Portable water is as important as anything else. If you have a few extra dollars lying a round, be just as likely to build a pond as you would anything else.
7. Stacking and multispeciation – best for health, profits, and future generations. Biggest loss is not soil or water, it’s the future generation.
8. Frugality – function over form.  Good enough is perfect.
9. Become all components in the chain.  
10. Wellness in the terrain we create.
11. Diversification in everything is everything.
12. Repopulate our farms.