Notes on Polyface Farms

Notes on Polyface Farms

Do we really need chemicals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals?

Many industrial farmers use these things every day in their farming, but is there really a need for them? Polyface Farms could say otherwise. In  “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” Pollan writes about how on Polyface Farms, they do not need to use these chemicals and “additives”. It is argued that the reasoning for this is, contrary to industrial farming, when you use a biological process for raising animals the way that nature intended it to, then there will be no need for such additives. Health is one important sign of efficiency. This system works itself out in a way that dismisses the use of these chemicals. They help to avoid certain sicknesses by having their animals be able to roam outside in the field, still confined, but with much more room than animals in tight quarters on industrial farms. But if everyone were to make this change to become more like Polyface, then there would also come drastic changes to the country. For example, since the industrial farms are so tightly packed with bunches of animals they do not take up as much room as Polyface Farms does. This would mean that we would need a lot more space for these farms to exist. But with about 17% (doublecheck number) of land being used for agriculture and raising animals for food, can we really afford to make such a change to our farms? Is there a better solution?

This could lead to many economic problems. Some farms are run in the middle of cities in factory type buildings. If all farms had to adapt Polyface’s ways of farming, then these city farms would not have anywhere to go to continue their business. This could result in a large decline in meat on the market. Low meat production could also stem from farmers not being able to have so many animals in such a small space, which would mean that when they spread out, they may have to give up some animals producing less meat. With less meat on the market, what would the chances be that hunting would rise again? Would people be more willing to hunt for a different game just to satisfy the need for meat that is not being provided in the market?

Many farmers may be upset with this change. This sort of drastic change could result in less revenue and loss of jobs. Though this is a chance, there also is the chance of the creation of more jobs since there is a lot more physical labor to be done, along with gaining a lot more revenue. Along with physical labor comes with mental labor as well.

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