Polyface Farm

Polyface Farm is a farm located in rural Swoope, Virginia, United States, and run by Joel Salatin and his family. The farm is driven using unconventional methods with the goal of "Emotionally-, Economically and Environmentally-Enhancing Agriculture". This farm is where Salatin developed and put into practice many of his most innovative and significant agricultural methods. These include, but are not limited to direct-marketing of meats and produce to consumers, pastured-poultry, grass-fed beef and the rotation method which makes his farm more like an ecological system than conventional farming. Polyface Farm operates a place where consumers go to pick up their produce.

Salatin bases his farm's ecosystem on the principle of watching animals' activities in nature and emulating those conditions as closely as possible. Cattle are moved daily among pastures in a herd and chickens are put in the original pasture. The cattle mow the grass short and leave manure, which the chickens pick through while also eating the mown grass. After the cattle winter in barns, pigs root through the manure on the floor and produce an aerated soil compost. Pasture is mixed with forest to provide natural air conditioning and reduce wind.

Polyface Farm was featured in the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan as exemplary sustainable agriculture, contrasting Polyface Farm favorably to factory farming. An [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/05/no_bar_code.html excerpt of the book] was published in the May/June 2006 of Mother Jones magazine.

Polyface Farm is a participant in Humane Farm Animal Care's Certified Humane Raised and Handled program.

External links

* [http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ Official website]
* [http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/details.php?ID=164 Video of a talk at the Berkeley School of Journalism]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=Swoope,+VA,+USA&ll=38.122977,-79.22297&spn=0.014146,0.029182&t=h&z=15 View of Polyface Farm from Google Maps]