Polyface Farm - Criticism

Criticism

Salatin is criticized, by poultry farmer Frank Reese, in Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals for raising industrial birds, not heritage birds. Reese says of Polyface, "Joel Salatin is doing industrial birds. Call him up and ask him. So he puts them on pasture. It makes no difference. It's like putting a broken-down Honda on the autobahn and saying it's a Porsche." Salatin maintains that this statement is not entirely true. Polyface uses heritage breeds for its egg production. However for meat birds Salatin uses the Cornish cross, the same type of bird used in the industrial system. Salatin candidly admits in his book, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, that the meat bird operation is currently the least sustainable aspect of the farm. Salatin goes on to say that he looks forward to the day that customers are willing to buy (and he is able to raise) a non-industrial meat bird. Reese's critique also aims at Michael Pollan's view in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma that depicts the farming principles of Polyface as exemplary and sustainable.

Salatin confirmed, in an interview with The Observer, that he raises non-heritage breed chickens. He explained that he had raised heritage birds for several years, but the poultry from these birds had gained little interest from consumers, and was therefore not economically viable for him.

Although advocates of Polyface Farm may point out that it promotes more humane treatment of animals by providing open space and free access to grass, Joel Salatin actually does not support government regulation of animal farms. Salatin was also a strong opponent of Prop 2 ballot initiatives that called for the abolition of battery cages and gestation crates, as well as requiring larger cages.

Polyface Farm has also received criticism for its selection of summer interns. In "'Green Eggs' and Ham? The Myth of Sustainable Meat and the Danger of the Local," Vasile Stanescu speaks of "gender conservatism" with regard to Polyface's policy of exclusively hiring "clean-cut, all American boy-girl appearance characters." Stanescu questions: "would a man who wears women’s clothes, much less a homosexual or a transsexual, be considered an "all-American" boy" The Polyface farm also caps its internship program based on gender, reserving six internships for males and two for females each summer.