Polyface Farm is so successful because they treat their animals more humanely than the “average” farm that is associated with the food industry today. On page 209 of “The Animals: Practicing Complexity”, Pollan explains how they treat their chickens. They have pens that are ten-by-twelve, two-foot-tall, and have grass areas behind them for the chickens to roam, eat, and fertilize the grass. After 24 hours the pens are moved so that they have fresh feeding ground and don’t have to roam in their own poop. In other slaughterhouses, the chickens are not treated fairly. Their beaks are clipped and they are forced to live in small cages with many other chickens and cannot move because there is not enough room to do so.” Since Polyface moves the chicken’s roaming area daily, they are able to bring the nitrogen from their poop to every part of the grounds that need it. On page 211, Pollan writes on page 215 how Polyface Farm is based on recreating how nature works. This can promote a very healthy lifestyle for the animals and the plant life. It has been shown that more naturally raised animals tend to taste better in the end.

A holon is described as something as a “self-contained whole” that also is from another dependant part. They first use the example of a body organ like the liver. The liver is its own self, but it also part of a bigger picture that depends on it which is a living body. Pollan also describes another holon with rabbits and chickens on the farm. The rabbits produce too much ammonia in their pee so they cannot be raised indoors. But when the chickens scratch into the ground that the pee is on, they turn it into carbonaceous bedding which creates a compost that is filled with earthworms that then, in turn, feed the hens. So the rabbits peeing is its own process, but it then used in a larger process to remain stable. Another example of a holon could be centering a ball of clay when throwing a piece on a potter’s wheel. Centering clay may seem as though you are making a perfect shape that can make it easier to throw on the wheel, but it is really part of a larger picture. In order for your piece to be even all throughout, it relies on centering your clay in the beginning. Same with making sure your piece is not out of round which can make your piece look funky.

The industrial food production system defines “efficiency” as the large economies that can be achieved by the use of new technology and standardization. This is usually used to defend large industrial farms. But efficiency is defined in natural systems as the coevolutionary relationships and reciprocal loops. Natural systems work so that nothing is wasted, everything is connected and beneficial to different species. Polyface Farms is efficient in a more natural way. They allow animals to live in a natural and humane way, such as how the chickens live in nice pens with areas to roam. But while they live in a natural way outside, the animals are each individually a process but are then a larger one in the bigger picture. Just as the rabbit and chicken situation is a holon, it is also very efficient. The pee from the rabbits is used instead of being wasted and is used for the chickens to scratch at to coax earthworms out of the ground for the chickens to then eat.