In this chapter, Pollen experiences Joel's farm at Polyface, where a half dozen animal species are raised together in an intensive rotational dance on the theme of symbiosis. Every animal has a specific job and contributes to the overall success of the far. As Joel mentions, "Animals do the work here" and "I'm just the orchestra conductor, making sure everybody's in the right place at the right time". Pollan then experiences how animals are used in this farm. For example, chickens are brought on the pasture and are known as the sanitation crew. They eat the fly larvae in manure on a four day cycle. This gives them prodigious amounts of protein which creates eggs that are unusually rich and tasty. All in all, Joel uses his cattle's waste to grow high-protein chicken feed for free. This is only one example of the many little cycles on his farm. Joel takes advantage of each species in a way that benefits them but also other animals. His practice makes him buy next to nothing for his farm. He finds that he has little need for machinery, fertilizers, and even chemicals. He also finds that he has no sanitation problem or any diseases coming from raising one animal from monocultures. As Pollen mentions, "this is perhaps the greatest efficiency of a farm treated as biological system: health".
It is very interesting to learn how a farm can be run this way. Everything just seems to work adequately with everything else in this farm, just like an ecosystem. Pollan, in this chapter, is trying to show us how you don't specifically need an industrialized farm to be successful in today's world. Although Joel farm seems to be ideal from this piece of writing, I don't think it can be seen as a solution for our farming methods in the U.S. I don't think everyone could be successful in achieving what Joel has created and I'm also doubting the fact that farming is his only source of income. His farming almost seems like a pastime instead of production for basic survival. Overall, I think his farming method is great and it should be a model for other local small-scale farming around the U.S but this would not replace big industrialized farms because his output does not seem to be efficient enough to provide for the population. However, I think it would be great if big-scale farms could use some of his ecological methods.
Questions:
Could big-scale farms use some of his methods of using animals to do work or is this only restricted to small-scale farming?
I think there might be a few practices that big farms could adopt from smaller farms, but maybe we should not be looking to big farms to solve our problems. Perhaps, instead, we should focus on increasing the number of small scale and mid-size farms. That way we can control the system much better. Once you start trying to do things on a super-sized scale, things fall through the cracks. It might be more effective for the long term health of our country to foster the smaller farms. That might even mean having co-operatives of small farms, but at least you are supporting many more people, instead of one large company.
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