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Summary
Credit: Susan McGuinness
Joel Salatin has many excellent ideas about making one's farm into a viable business. See: You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start and Succeed in a Farming Enterprise and Pastured Poultry Profits. These are his 2 books on the subject, classics in the field.
Currently, Joel Salatin says he gets 25% of his income from on-farm sales, 30% from chefs in restaurants and 45% from buyers' clubs. The buyers' clubs establishment story was quite interesting. The contrast with farmers' market trading was clear.
Azure Standard and
SPUD facilitate buyers' club type of marketing. This model cuts out the middle man and could be part of the future of farming.
If someone has done it, it can be done: Modifying and innovating using the design principles of permaculture include challenges. Weaning oneself off the desire for a road map or recipe book is among the first of these. See Permaculture:
A Designers' Manual by
Bill Mollison. Owen Hablutzel is one of the lead instructors on a rigorous PDC in Utah, July 14 - 27, 2013 at True Nature Farm. The material states that their certification does not include woo-woo. Paul reiterated that
purple (more spiritual) PDCs have value for the people who will enjoy that and he is glad that there also exist 'brown' (more practical) PDCs. Garrett said that as he continues his permaculture education he intends to go on a 'purple' PDC to increase his education. Paul, 'brown' in approach as if you didn't know, reminded us that the PDC he took was rather 'purple' and that he had a very good time.
Assets are liabilities: According to Joel Salatin when going into farming one has to know or at least have a plan for what one is going to do + a business plan. Multi-function and earning-its- keep are important principles. Ratio of infrastructure to income illustrate how seriously in-debt it's possible to be as a farmer. Joel Salatin's model offers alternatives.
Knowing when to say 'No': Speaks for itself.
Joel Salatin's internship process was discussed in some detail.
Aligning with local nature: For example, calving
should occur when the deer in one's area are having fawns.
White collar salary: Make proper money being a farmer.
Get more out of each acre.
One + One = Three: Work with people who like doing what you don't. No one can do everything so find people, or encourage family members, who compliment you and encourage them to develop their area(s) of expertise. This multiplies diversity.
Good
enough is perfect: Speaks for itself.
Unfair advantage: Create your own. It's easy to get hung up when comparing one's situation with others', don't fall for that. Figure out what your advantage is and use that or those, 'cause once one starts thinking this way the opportunities start becoming more obvious.
Breeding: Breed for strong stock. Do not medicate. Get pre-1940 publications for information on causes and solutions rather than falling for currently prevailing Big Ag. solutions which are largely pharmaceutical.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly: When you innovate or when doing something for the first time the result will not be perfect.
Pigs: Listen for yourself. Paul concludes this by saying decide what you seek in what you let pigs disturb.
Economies of scale: Work out how much time it takes to look after say, 10 laying chickens versus 100. It's about the same (especially with floorless, moveable coops which Salatin is known for). Figure out the market for 10 times more eggs.
Bio-mass accumulation: In grass v. trees, Salatin says grass.
No straight fences: Joel puts his permanent fences on contour, cows help make terraces.
Idiosyncrasies of your property: Garrett said that, for example, different parts of land are grazed at different times. Optimize strategies to decide when and where to graze cattle.
Delivery fees: Salatin follows U.P.S. model.
Buyers' clubs v C.S.A.: Joel Salatin prefers buyers' clubs, details are quite interesting.
This podcast is Paul and Garretts' condensation of a 10 hour presentation by Joel Salatin, so there was a lot of filtering.
Garrett describes how he started his Permaculture
experience a couple of years ago with reading and listening to Paul's podcasts and then going to a PDC He said that the past week at the lectures and workshops + the time he spent with Paul and Joel. had been an example of how open the community is and how abundant the opportunities are.
This was Paul's last speaking engagement till winter 2013/2014 because he's getting on with working at his land in Montana.
PermacultureVoices is coming up in March 2014. Paul Wheaton, Joel Salatin, Dr Elaine Ingham, Michael Pollin,
Allan Savory,
Toby Hemenway and Geof Lawton are already booked.
Sepp Holzer and Willie Smits are waiting to know about ticket sales. Buying one's ticket now will help get more speakers. Garret opined that it will be a high quality conference.
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