“This is not a book about saving the world. This is about making a living at profitable agriculture.” (p.298)

If you’ve read The Omnivore’s Dilemma there’s a part in the second section where Pollan visits an organic farm and talks to a farmer about his interesting way of using animals, the amount he can produce on such a small acreage, and the sophisticated new methods he’s using as a “grass farmer”. The farmer he visits is Joel Salatin. I was intrigued to learn about this farmer and his system plus I’ve had a romanticized fantasy of buying some acres with a quaint little house to grow our own vegetables and maybe have a few chickens.

All of this lead me to read You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start & $ucceed in a Farming Enterprise by Joel Salatin. It’s basically a business book on how to start up a farming enterprise. It’s definitely an interesting read for anyone thinking about making a living full time as a farmer. However, if you want to have a little vegetable garden or a few chickens to feed the family, this book isn’t for you.

The interesting parts of the book consist of his recommendations and dispelling certain myths:

– Don’t buy land - First figure out how you can make money farming on rented land at a small scale and then buy land and/or ramp up. You need to establish the market first and then scale up to support it.
– Always sell at retail - A small farmer can’t make money selling at wholesale you have to sell at retail or have another job.
– Live near a market - You don’t want to be out in boondocks with nothing around, you need land close to a city so you can sell your products direct to customers.
– Spend thought and time marketing, not just growing - This is required to get the premium prices. If you create a story and give customers something different then you can charge retail prices by selling directly to them. You’ll have to market.

He definitely has some strong opinions which sound like rantings with a hint of crazy at various points:

– Homeschooling is the best (only) option for educating your children.
– The agribusiness establishment is driving small farmers out of business and producing bad food, they are in cahoots with the government.
– Because of this, he is anti-government and anything part of or related to the government which includes the USDA, extension services, health care, etc.

I was hoping to learn more about his new/unique methods of producing high quality organic food on small acreage and his symbiotic system of animal grazing. It appears those are covered his books on chickens and beef.

It was an interesting read and I learned a lot about what it takes to start up a farming business, most of which would apply to starting up any business. Can I farm? After reading this book it’s a “no” which was at least worth the cover price.

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