This is where the "processing" is done on the Polyface farm: naturally, by the animals. This is actually a very simple method of food flowchart
Sun -> Grass -> Cattle -> Chicken
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V
pigs
The chicken, being the "Cleaning crew" of the grass, takes care of the grub in the cow pies, and help spread the manure, and eats up more grass. Here, Salatin is allowing the chicken to do what it does the best - scratching. Salatin also uses the pigs natural tendency to play in manure to spread cow compost to his pasture.
source: about.com
The author essentially reports the efficiency of this closed loop, complex system in which all the animals are dependent on each other. Taking this line of logic: the humans try to re-invent the wheel by simplifying the process of nature, to create his own version of the complex system. The only problem with that, it seems, that made made systems are always fundamentally flawed somehow.
Looks like the general population is too caught with instant gratification and results, that most forgot to see the background advantages of Salatin's way of farming : In order to count
this system’s efficiency, “you need to count not only all the products it produces...but also all the costs it eliminates: antibiotics, wormers, pesticides, and fertilizers.”
So if such a great way exists to produce food, why don't all the farmers follow the Polyface method? The answer, the author says, is simple: most farmers are lazy. If the machine can do all the job for us, then there is no incentive to get up 6 am everyday to take care of the chickens.
This begs the question: why did humans create technology in the first place? to make our lives easier, save us time. Yet, this dependency on machinery is killing us ever so slowly. In the industrial revolution, people want to automate everything. Now in this post-industrial era, the trend is almost the opposite - people are finding ways to go back to nature.
source: Zone5
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