centerforfoodsafety's video: Joel Salatin on Creating Young Farmers

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms explains his vision for the farm of the future: one that is mobile, modular, and management intensive. This changes the economic profile of the farm, providing an opportunity for young farmers to get in and old folks to get out so that we can have a transition between generations. Watch more interviews at soilsolution.org Transcript: Our vision for the farm of the future, which is what we’ve been kind of experimenting with on our own place, is that it’s a farm that will be—that will have—mobile infrastructure, instead of stationary, so that the infrastructure is not capital intensive, and it’s portable, and it’s nimble. You can separate the farm from the infrastructure so you don’t have to own the land. Secondly, it is modular. So you can invest in small components and then, if you like it and it’s successful, then you add modules as you grow so you can scale up without borrowing money. And thirdly, it’s a farm that is management-intensive so that rather than being capital-intensive with concrete, energy, pharmaceuticals, or whatever, it’s actually management-intensive. So we’re trading pharmaceuticals and depreciation for strategic management for people. That way the equity is in information, management, and customers rather than infrastructure. That completely changes the economic profile of a farm and offers an opportunity for landless, cashless, equity-less young people to get in, so the old folks can get out, and we can have a transition between generations.