Polyface, Incorporated – förlag

Drawing upon 40 years' experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace. Their system favors industrial, global corporate food systems and discourages community-based food commerce, resulting in homogenized selection, mediocre quality, and exposure to non-organic farming practices. Salatin's expert insight explains why local food is expensive and difficult to find and will illuminate for the reader a deeper understanding of the industrial food complex.

A couple working six months per year for 50 hours per week on 20 acres can net $25,000-$30,000 per year with an investment equivalent to the price of one new medium-sized tractor. Seldom has agriculture held out such a plum. In a day when main-line farm experts predict the continued demise of the family farm, the pastured poultry opportunity shines like a beacon in the night, guiding the way to a brighter future.

In a day when beef is assailed by many environmental organizations and lauded by fast-food chains, a new paradigm to bring reason to this confusion is in order. With farmers leaving the land in droves and plows poised to "reclaim" set-aside acres, it is time to offer an alternative that is both land and farmer friendly.Beyond that, the salad bar beef production model offers hope to rural communities, to struggling row-crop farmers, and to frustrated beef eaters who do not want to encourage desertification, air and water pollution, environmental degradation and inhumane animal treatment. Because this is a program weighted toward creativity, management, entrepreneurism and observation, it breathes fresh air into farm economics.

Foodies and environmentally minded folks often struggle to understand and articulate the fundamental differences between the farming and food systems they endorse and those promoted by Monsanto and friends. With visceral stories and humor from Salatin's half-century as a "lunatic" farmer, Salatin contrasts the differences on many levels: practical, spiritual, social, economic, ecological, political, and nutritional.In today's conventional food-production paradigm, any farm that is open-sourced, compost-fertilized, pasture-based, portably-infrastructured, solar-driven, multi-speciated, heavily peopled, and soil-building must be operated by a lunatic. Modern, normal, reasonable farmers erect "No Trespassing" signs, deplete soil, worship annuals, apply petroleum-based chemicals, produce only one commodity, erect Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, and discourage young people from farming.Anyone looking for ammunition to defend a more localized, solar-driven, diversified food system will find an entire arsenal in these pages. With wit and humor honed during countless hours working on the farm he loves, and then interacting with conventional naysayers, Salatin brings the land to life, farming to sacredness, and food to ministry.Divided into four main sections, the first deals with principles to nurture the earth, an idea mainline farming has never really endorsed. The second section describes food and fiber production, including the notion that most farmers don't care about nutrient density or taste because all they want is shipability and volume. The third section, titled "Respect for Life," presents an apologetic for food sacredness and farming as a healing ministry. Only lunatics would want less machinery and pathogenicity. Oh, the ecstasy of not using drugs or paying bankers. How sad. The final section deals with promoting community, including the notion that more farmers would be a good thing.

America’s average farmer is sixty years old. When young people can’t get in, old people can’t get out. Approaching a watershed moment, our culture desperately needs a generational transfer of millions of farm acres facing abandonment, development, or amalgamation into ever-larger holdings. Based on his decades of experience with interns and multigenerational partnerships at Polyface Farm, farmer and author Joel Salatin digs deep into the problems and solutions surrounding this land- and knowledge-transfer crisis. This book empowers aspiring young farmers, midlife farmers, and nonfarming landlords to build regenerative, profitable agricultural enterprises.

Twenty years ago Joel Salatin wrote You Can Farm, which has launched thousands of farm entrepreneurs around the world. With another 20 years of experience under his belt, bringing him to the half-century mark as a full-time farmer, he decided to build on that foundation with a sequel, a graduate level curriculum.Everyone who reads and enjoys that previous work will benefit from this additional information. In those 20 years, Polyface Farm progressed from a small family operation to a 20-person, 6,000-customer, 50-restaurant business, all without sales targets, government grants, or an off-farm nest egg.As a germination tray for new farmers ready to take over the 50 percent of America's agricultural equity that will become available over the next two decades, Polyface Farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley stands as a beacon of hope in a food and farming system floundering in dysfunction: toxicity, pathogenicity, nutrient deficiency, bankruptcy, geezers, and erosion. Speaking into that fear and confusion, Salatin offers a pathway to success, with production, profit, and pleasure thrown in for good measure.

A nutritionist and a renowned organic farmer explore and explain the art of eating well.Do you want to be healthy, happy and free?  But find yourself stuck in your healing journey and want some guidance and encouragement?  Perhaps you are overwhelmed by all of the conflicting diet advice.  Maybe you don’t know where to start or who to trust.  Or, maybe you just need a little motivation. You’re not alone. We’re constantly bombarded with ever-changing diet recommendations and the latest diet crazes: Paleo, Keto, Whole 30, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and the list goes on.  Eggs are bad one day and good the next. Kale is good for you today. Tomorrow it contains high levels of thallium and is toxic to your thyroid gland.  How do you know what to put on your plate that will bring you toward greater health and wellness?In Beyond Labels, Joel Salatin, a farmer who is blazing the trail for regenerative farm practices, and Sina McCullough, a Ph.D. in Nutrition who actually understands unpronounceable carbon chains, bring you on a journey from generally unhealthy food and farming to an ultimately healing place.  Through compelling discussions leavened with a dose of humor, they share practical and easily doable tips about:What to eatHow to find it and prepare itHow to save money and time in the kitchenHow to stay true to your principles in our modern cultureWhether you are just starting your health journey or you grow all of your own food, this book is designed to meet you where you are and motivate you to take the next step in your healing journey – ultimately bringing you closer to health, happiness, and freedom.“The ideas, evidence and takeaways from this book have the power to reshape America's declining health. This is the most-fascinating, inspirational, and flat out most useful book I've ever read.  Joel and Sina have done what no other authors have managed to do. They've created a survival guide for the war on our gut microbiome.” -Andy Snyder, Founder of Manward Press

A comprehensive how-to manual of Polyface Farm’s signature designs--with tips, tricks, and a half century of lessons learned through trial and errorHave you wondered how to build the Polyface broiler shelter, or the dolly to move it, or an Eggmobile, Gobbledygo or Shademobile? For folks getting started, folks adding enterprises, or folks wanting a cheaper bootstrap way to build portable livestock infrastructure, Polyface Designs has all the diagrams and do-it-yourself building specifications. Joel Salatin wrote the text and Polyface former apprentice and engineer extraordinaire Chris Slattery did the drawings. Ultimately practical, the book includes how to build a corral, a home-made head gate and even how to select the right axle for your project. Square footage requirements for the deep bedding hay shed and area advice for pig pastures make this the definitive repository for a lifetime of Polyface experimentation.A massive volume, its 568 pages are in full color and beautiful enough to be a coffee table book even though you’ll use it in your shop. Don’t let the cover price scare you; one building tip can more than save the price of the book.

“I love your ideas, but I only have a few acres. How do I do this at my scale?”  Success with domestic livestock does not require large land bases. Joel Salatin and his family’s Polyface Farm in Virginia lead the world in animal-friendly and ecologically authentic, commercial, pasture-based livestock production. In Polyface Micro he adapts the ideas and protocols to small holdings (including apartments)! Homesteaders can increase production, enjoy healthy animals, and create aesthetically and aromatically pleasant livestock systems. Whether you’re a new or seasoned homesteader, you’ll find tips and inspiration as Joel coaches you toward success and abundance.

From his 66-year farm, food, and family experience, Joel Salatin explains why people are fleeing cities, cashing out retirement funds, and heading to the countryside. The exodus is both a goodbye to one life and an embrace of another. When society breaks down, people head away from the city. For food security, health, and satisfaction, homesteads offer a haven of hope and help when much seems hopeless and helpless. While fear motivates people to change, only faith sustains. This book offers multiple reasons for modern homestead living.  Some are:Secure, stable, safe food.Healthy, happy children.Superior immune function.Community and connections.Meaningful work.Creation stewardship immersion.In his 16th book, Salatin offers the homestead why to those contemplating the jump, those trying to dissuade their friends from jumping, and those who regret having jumped. Despite its sweat and disappointments, homesteading offers incalculable benefits that feed the soul, soil, and spirit. Homestead Tsunami digs deep into the ethos of today’s best pension plan: living and learning proximate to people who know how to build things, repair, things and grow things. A better life awaits.

For six years Joel Salatin's Pitchfork Pulpit column in The Mother Earth News magazine inspired and challenged readers. These columns, in the order they ran, preserve that timeless writing legacy for today's homesteading, small farming, and self-reliance community.As America's iconic and fearless bootstrap farmsteader, Joel Salatin captures principles of practical success and philosophical wisdom in this series of essays originally published in Mother Earth News magazine. From stewarding a woodlot to managing aromatically-appealing chickens, his dirt-under-the-fingernails experience coaches readers to self-reliant success. Untangling from industrial corporate systems dependency is a lifelong process, and one that jumpstarts with this trove of advice.