This Sustainable House

In ‘You Can Farm’ Joel Salatin debunks the urban, or would it be rural, legend that there is no money to be made farming. That is is a dead-end job.

In order to support this, he outlines the principles and philosophies that he feels are integral to making a living on a farm, and should be considered by any aspiring farmer. He discusses the principal mistakes that new farmers make, as well as possible solutions to those mistakes.

All of this is done in a distinctly ‘no-nonsense’ style indicating that the author is most definitely a farmer, not just talking about farming. That’s not to say that what he says is simple, but rather he is ridiculously direct in his statements. Clearly cutting to the chase rather than prevaricating around the bushes.

The concept that struck me most audibly was the need for the new farmer to develop a clear purpose and value proposition for the farm. Of course this isn’t anything new, successful business has been doing this for quite a while, but in Joel’s experience (and mine if I am honest) it isn’t be widely practiced in agriculture. How then do we know if we are successful if we have had no plan against which to measure success?

I have to admit that this book was something of a wake up call for me as I had, along the way, lost something of the vision I had for TSH. Actually, I’d say that this vision hasn’t so much been lost as evolved into something else which I haven’t yet been able to pin down. As a result, I have often felt as though I have been immersed in ‘creative inertia’… lots of activity but no actual achievement.

Of course this is about to change as I re-work the original goals for TSH into a form that more closely matches the current focus. This should give me a better overall vision, and assist me to build TSH into all it can be.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone considering a farming life, or those who are there but don’t know quite where they are going. I am sure that with Joel’s hard-hitting advice you will be able to stimulate a few thoughts encouraging you to build your own vision of a glorious future in farming.