Family Friendly Farming

Saving the land­scape, rebuild­ing entre­pre­neur­ial rur­al fam­i­lies, and pro­tect­ing nutri­tious food are the themes of this time­less trea­tise — hence the word ​“tes­ta­ment.” Delving into the soul of the Salatin fam­i­ly’s nation­al­ly acclaimed Polyface Farm, author Joel Salatin offers Family Friendly Farming as the key to deal­ing with resource issues, food pol­i­cy, and social fabric.

With humor and per­son­al sto­ries, he opens his fam­i­ly and farm con­vic­tions for all to see, share, and enjoy. Written from his unabashed ​“Christian lib­er­tar­i­an envi­ron­men­tal­ist cap­i­tal­ist” per­spec­tive, his ideas are guar­an­teed to encour­age and chal­lenge vir­tu­al­ly every ​“ism” in the cul­ture. It will cap­ti­vate any­one pas­sion­ate about heal­ing the land, heal­ing fam­i­lies, and heal­ing the food supply.

For sev­er­al decades young peo­ple have been leav­ing the fam­i­ly farm. The ones left behind are now respon­si­ble for soci­ety’s great­est resources: clean land and clean food. Anyone ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing these resources will find in these pages a non­govern­men­tal, self-empow­er­ment approach to envi­ron­men­tal­ism and food safety.

The heart of this book is aimed toward par­ents tired of their Dilbert cubi­cle at the end of the express­way who want to recon­nect with their chil­dren through a pas­toral lifestyle. It’s writ­ten for any­one who yearns to grow old work­ing with and being adored by val­ue-shar­ing grand­chil­dren and hon­ored by pas­sion­ate, pro­duc­tive adult chil­dren. Family Friendly Farming can make any fam­i­ly busi­ness more viable and any fam­i­ly more functional.

The ten-chap­ter sec­tion on how to get the kids to love the farm is an invalu­able addi­tion to any col­lec­tion of child-rear­ing man­u­als. Salatin moves from the fam­i­ly team-build­ing sec­tion into a prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sion on how to increase income per acre and cre­ate new, white-col­lar salaries with­out buy­ing more land, equip­ment, or build­ings. He deals with the unique and thorny issues sur­round­ing any fam­i­ly busi­ness by using his own mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional fam­i­ly farm expe­ri­ence as his base for insight and wisdom.