Chapter Ten: Grass: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture

1. MONDAY"Maybe we're just too big to see what's going on down there in any detail." Grass. A gorgeous sea of green. And for most of us, that's where it ends. But for farmers like Joel, grass is glorious. It's a forest of different species: from white clover, to fescue and sweet grass. Dozens of grass species line the ground of the Salatin farm. And his whole farm revolves around the idea of grass. No wonder he is a grass farmer--the whole food chain revolves around grass (okay, okay--so it's technically the sun). His management is intensive to make sure cows don't get a "second bite" before the grass recuperates and to make sure the grass isn't being underutilized. There is a perfect balance between under- and over- grazing, and Salatin has perfected this. But if this was the way nature intended, it sure wasn't the method nature would use. "It might not look that way, but this is all information-age stuff we're doing here. Polyface Farm is a postindustrial enterprise. You'll see." I can't wait!
2. MONDAY EVENING
Joel Salatin frequently moves his cows with the help of a moveable electric fence he helped design. This is to make sure they get fresh grass, at the right time, to optimize their nutrients. Plus, disease is extremely decreased (no need for antibiotics) thanks to the fact that cows no longer live with their poop (actually, the chicken's do--the Eggmobile follows the cow rotation to clean up after the cows and eat fly larvae in the manure; they then spread it out to return nutrients to the soil). Joel's cattle even knew the drill by now. "The animals fanned out in the new paddock and lowered their great 

Grass should be king.

heads, and the evening air filled with muffled sounds of smacking lips, tearing grass, and the low snuffling of contented cows." What a difference from the life and diet of steer 534. This bonus diversity is a gift to all involved: it allows the land to capture the maximum amount of solar energy which helps the rest of the farm grow and thrive. This productivity helps remove thousands of pounds of carbon from the atmosphere every year, storing it as humus. Which is way different from the thousands of pounds of carbon that industrial farms put into the atmosphere each year. So why did we ever turn away from this "free lunch" for a biologically ruinous meal based on corn? Why did we take ruminants off the frass? Why does food based on gas and corn cost less than one made by grass and sunlight? It turns out that more food energy is produced on an acre of pasture than an acre of corn. But it is corn and other grains that can be accumulated, traded, stored, easily grown and cheap to maintain. Plus, the government subsidizes corn, not, unfortunately, grass. So, the "logic of the industry" had decided that corn is king. Although Salatin, Pollan, and now I, believe this to be completely false. Grass is king!
3. MONDAY SUPPER
After settling the cows, a tired Pollan took to the dinner table to eat the most local meal he had ever eaten at this point. Almost everything was off of the farm; to the Salatin family, people who didn't live this way, but lived the "Wall Street" way, were crazy. And Pollan could see why. Their self-contained world was Jeffersonian in a way. And it was just 50 years ago that it was started. Joel's father William (who helped design/patent the first walking sprinkler, "shademobile," portable chicken coup and the electric fencing used on the cows) had bought this abused, eroded and nutrient-free land. And the Salatin family has been working to heal the land ever since--it obviously has worked. With grass and mobility, the farm is one of the best there is. "Oh, how proud he would be to see this place now."