Customer Reviews

You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Nothing has motivated me more than Salatin's book, YOU CAN FARM. Finally, we are doing it! Wish I'd had this book 30 years ago, but the author was a child at the time. Extremely well written, shows how a couple willing to work hard can make a profit (when was the last time the average farmer heard that word?) on 20 acres. Very tactfully explains why most farmers not only are not profitable, but often require someone working off the farm in order to maintain the lifestyle. No longer necessary. But what is necessary is some rethinking of the rules, some creative marketing of what is produced, and a need for the farmer to think of himself (once again) as an independent businessman, rather than a cog in the wheel of agri-industry. Give this one to the young person who wants to go to the land, and watch what happens!

In YOU CAN FARM, Joel Salatin describes just how he runs his farm and why. By sticking to the example of his own experience and his own farm, he paints a vivid, detailed, and obviously accurate picture of how he makes his living from farming, and how you can, too.

Most of the farm activities he recommends require little up-front investment or experience. One can start small and expand as one learns the ropes.

We've used many of Salatin's ideas on our farm in Oregon, and they've worked very well for us, and we know a lot of other people who've put them to work as well.

Other writers focus too much on the romance and political correctness of ecologically responsible farming. But romance and political correctness don't pay the bills. "Sustainable agriculture" has to sustain the farmer as well as the land, or it's nothing but a snare and a delusion. Salatin shows a proven path to success and profitability.

I read this book the year my husband and I first started our organic vegetable farm (five years ago). It was a VERY inspirational book, and at the time I wanted EVERYONE I knew to read it. Salatin is highly entertaining and motivating -- the book is well organized into topical chapters with lots of lists and bullet points. It's a great read, and several chapters are RIGHT ON (such as the chapter on what to avoid and how to deal with moving to the country).

However, there are also some big scary flaws in the book that make it somewhat dangerous in the wrong hands. First of all, Salatin's list of BEST farming enterprises is very persuasive but doesn't account for differences between farms, regions, and markets. He ranks poultry operations as being highly profitable, but today chicken feed prices in the west (can't speak for elsewhere) are so high that all the small-scale poultry operators I know have gotten out of the business. Meanwhile, new farmers keep trying to do poultry because of Salatin's book, but I have yet to see it pencil out in reality for anyone.

Also, there's a big math error in that chapter as well. While he endorses vegetable growing as a viable enterprise option, he kills it with faint praise when he says this:

"In order to move $30,000 worth of stuff, you need a lot of pounds of stuff, and you need a lot of customers. If the average person spends $600 per year on fresh vegetables (which I'm sure is a high estimate), you would need 500 customers in order to gross $30,000. Because the price per pound and average purchase is higher for animal proteins, we here at Polyface can do that volume with fewer than 100 customers, on average. That's a hefty difference."

The problem with this analysis? $600 x 500 = $300,000!!!!!!! To make only $30,000, you would actually only need **50** customers paying $600 each. Big mistakes like this really bother me, especially when they're paired with such a strong argument in favor of one thing over another ... I just wonder how many uncritical readers have read this point and turned towards livestock production rather than fresh veggies (which is what we grow on our farm -- and we have found to be HIGHLY profitable). And, by the way, our average customers spends almost $1000/year on vegetables.

I also have a hard time swallowing Salatin's aggressive marketing techniques. He admits to GIVING AWAY free pullet eggs at market even though there were other farmers selling eggs that same day. He's even proud of this decision! Here in Oregon, the best resource we have are other farmers. We try our best to cooperate, even as we compete in the same markets (some call it "cooperatition"). Giving away product or undercutting others prices is not a good way to make friends with (or be fair to) other farmers.

Finally, I think that in Salatin's enthusiasm he verges on making farming sound TOO do-able. Let me tell you: farming is hard. You CAN farm, but new farmers need to have training, knowledge, good health, physical strength, money, land, time, and energy (and much more too). I have seen so many people start up farms with big dreams but not enough resources. Some of them have made it after fumbling a lot, but many others quit.

The advice in this vein that annoys me the most is when Salatin claims you can hypothetically farm without a tractor (and goes on to recommend buying a large BCS tiller, which is nowhere near as versatile as a tractor). Meanwhile, Salatin himself has a tractor. Every successful farmer I know has a tractor. Maybe on a very small scale you can make it without a tractor, but the reality is that to really succeed, YOU NEED A TRACTOR! They're useful for so many things besides tillage. And, getting a tractor is just not a big deal -- tractors are available used in all scales and price ranges, and they're not that hard to learn how to operate.

So, in conclusion, I'd still recommend this book to a wanna-be farmer, but with some big caveats: Salatin is a highly opinionated, fairly extreme (Libertarian Christian) man who offers his advice from his particular point of view. Take it ALL with a grain of salt and be prepared to tailor everything he suggests to your own farm, region, and market.

...

ETA 11/28/11: I've given this review a lot of thought and reflection since I first wrote it, and I've come back now to change it a bit. First of all, I've changed the review to three stars. Really, the book probably deserves more, but I want to make sure the points I make here stand out, because I feel like they really are important to note for possible future farmers (especially the bit about math and veggies).

But, upon reflection (and reading some of the comments), I definitely have been too harsh in my attempt to offer an alternative opinion here and point out the problems that I see. I've been reading more of Mr. Salatin's work and thinking more about our own farm experience, and honestly I can't think of an author I would recommend more to an aspiring farmer (along with Wendell Berry). The thing is, (in my opinion), when Mr. Salatin gets it right, he gets it really really really right. But there are moments when his strongly voiced opinions are seriously OFF from my real world experience. I think that in all his books (including this one), Mr. Salatin consistently underestimates the real world cost of animal feed and labor. Some of this might be related to the time of writing or the region or the fact that Polyface Farm uses apprentices rather than paid employees (a system that is very useful but unfortunately not legal - there have been crackdowns on intern programs here in Oregon lately).

Overall, I think that when Mr. Salatin speaks about specifics from his personal experience, he shines, and I seriously love the man. When he starts getting prescriptive about other farms (such as the top ten enterprises list), I start to get frustrated. This is true for me with any farm writer. Ultimately, every farm is so unique that it is up to the farmer to "figure it all out." Mr. Salatin acknowledges this in every book, including this one, so hopefully that is the take-home message for readers, and I'm glad to emphasize it again here: Ultimately, YOU have to figure it all out!

This book is not designed to give you exact deails on a farming enterprise, his other books do that well. This is a book designed to show you that YOU CAN FARM. It gives you the appropriate perspective to take when beginning a farming enterprise. I have read all of his books and this is one intelligent man. While you may not agree with all of his personal views, if you want to start farming, READ THIS BOOK FIRST!!! My family did well in their agricultural enterprises when they followed methods similar to Salatins. When they began using so called "conventional" methods, profits went down, work increased and headaches abounded. This is a must read for anyone thinking about farming. One of the few times you will see farming presented in a positive light.

If you don't like reality checks, don't read this book. With his no-nonsense attitude, Salatin walks you through several opportunities in farming that show tremendous potential as profitable enterprises, and he also tells you what to stay away from and why (e.g. starting a horse or alpaca farm is NOT the best way to break into farming and turn a real profit, no matter how pretty or cuddly they may be).

Yes, occasionally he does break into a radical conservative rant--but who cares what he thinks about healthcare and New York City? What matters to me is that I come away from the book equipped with knowledge that will help me make wiser decisions. For someone like me who's starting from scratch, what I want to know is how I will do things differently after reading this book, and in that regard, this book was EXCELLENT.

The most important message that Salatin drilled through my head with "You Can Farm" is this: Carve your niche first, start the farm later. Most of us have it backwards. Perhaps too many people have seen "Field of Dreams" and assume "Build it, and they will come." It simply doesn't work that way with farming. That's why so many agricultural operations depend on off-farm income and/or go out business completely.

Then there's the little fantasy of having a patch of land to call your own. I'm no stranger to it; I want to own the land I farm, too, for no reason other than I just want to. But it comes at a high cost, and Salatin won't let you forget it: "Land should only be acquired when you know what to do with it, and the size should be less important than location. Be patient and let your farming enterprise drive the land base, rather than the land base driving the farm." If you latch onto a piece of land too early on, you'll probably end up painting yourself into a corner--a tight, unprofitable corner.

And that brings me to Salatin's next major point: Stay flexible. In order to succeed in farming, you've got to be an opportunist. That means you've got to have an eye for chances to fill a niche, and be adaptive enough to fill them. If you invest in a specific type of farming, if you weigh yourself down with unnecessary expenses, or if you're too hung up on waiting for the "perfect" opportunity, then the REAL opportunities will pass you by.

This book is for farming ENTREPRENEURS: people who need to turn a solid profit from farming in order to pursue it at all. If you're interested in having a farm more for a lifestyle than for a living, or if you don't mind working an outside job, or if you're at all squeamish about livestock and everything it entails (including "processing" and "culling"), then you may prefer titles by Eliot Coleman and the like. But if you want to learn how to approach farming as a business, this is a must-have.

I'm a computer programmer but I've always wanted to farm. I was looking through the library for and stumbled upon this book and I loved it. The book encourages and enables a very sober assessment of whether or not farming is for you. Salatin is a top notch marketer and farmer. While Strunk and White are unlikely to mail him any awards (not just because they're both dead) I learned a lot from this book and was left hopeful to someday live out my dream. Salatin was concerned that he was too sober, too raw as to the potential for hardships and failure, but he and the Grass-Farmer journal guy (quoted about once a chapter) decided that if you still wanted to farm after reading this, you were better off for the warning.

I think the criticism about his 'agenda' is unfounded. He has strong beliefs and doesn't hide them, but it's his book. And calling him a hypocrite is unfair. He mentions that things are slower in the winter when he does his writing. To knock him for taking time away to help others farm isn't right. His farm's 'mission' (how many farms have a mission statement?) is not only to develop these principles but also to teach them to others. But I can see how you could read this and think he was a kook. To each his own.

In short I was the perfect target for this book and was perfectly satisfied by it.

Joel Salatin's book is great. If you have ever wanted to farm, this is the book for you. I initally wrote the paragraph below in response to someone elses review and comment about farming in the city, but decided to post this as my own review intead so more people could see it. Here you go:

I would like to respond about starting "farm" projects in a city. My husband and I live in a typical suburban-american, new neighborhood, complete with a home owners association. After reading all of Joel Salatin's books, we are die-hard farmer-wanna-be's. Due to my husband's commitment in the military, we cannot start our own farm until his enlistment is up in 2010, but we fully intend to farm using Joel's models. Anyway, back to the point: In our suburban backyard we have: 2 pygmy goats (ie miniature goats) for fresh raw milk, 7 egg-laying chickens, 3 rabbits for breeding and meat, and we currently have a 5'x7' salatin-style moveable chicken shelter with 27 chickens for meat (we will process these chickens in about 4 more weeks and into the freezer they will go). We also have a garden. You may be thinking we have a huge yard, but it is pretty small; our fenced-in back yard (where all the fun goes on) is only maybe 1/16th of an acre. We manage our animals very well, and are very particular about intensively grazing them (we use electric fence) so we can properly take care of our grass, so we can continue supporting so many animals, etc. etc. Yes, this is most likely illegal (we prefer to remain ignorant on the local codes). Is anyone complaining? No. Does anyone know? Only our immediate neighbors, whom we spoke with before taking on this endeavor. Do they care? No, they think it's great. The neighbor girls like to come over and pet the goats. Our other neighbor is building his own chicken coup so he can get 2 egg-layers for himself. If you live in a neighborhood and think you can't do this, let me tell you that you can. Especially in neighborhoods with the 6' privacy fences. No one can see in our yard, so no one knows except the people we want to know. We don't have any roosters to make noise. Honestly the neighbor's dogs are much louder than all of our animals combined. The first time we raised chickens in our yard I was constantly nervous that someone would complain, but no one ever did. Now I have a lot more confidence in our new paradigms, and am thankful that we can think outside the box in regards to our food suply. I am so thankful for healthy food, and want to encourage anyone with a yard who wants to do this but has reservations, to go ahead and try! I know it may not work for everyone, but it's working out great for us. We never would have done this if we hadn't found Joel's books, and this has been a great change in our lives.

This is one of the best books I've read on any subject, not just farming. Salatin's sage advice on basic life skills (debt, sacrifice, discipline, being a good neighbor, etc) alone is the worth the price of the book. In addition, his model for sucessful farming is well thought out and clearly presented. Buy this book!

I wouldnt have Joel Salatin over for dinner, if you know what I mean. He'd be THAT guest. He comes across as a nutcase nightmare straight out of the Great Depression. BUT- Joel Salatin is a genius, and his book was part of what pushed us into farming. If you are trying to figure out if farming, or even homesteading, is for you- then this is the book you need. Especially if you have rosy, idealistic, earthmother fantasies. This book is the equivalent of an ice water bath for people thinking about getting "out there". A MUST read, just take a deep breath and two good pinches of salt. You can farm like Joel Salatin, just dont turn into Joel Salatin!

I will say that this book was amazingly inspirational, and highly critical of the agricultural experience. Salatin describes both the up and downsides of his particular farming techniques and methods and still has time to throw in a great deal of philosophy and general wisdom besides. Probably the most powerful recommendation I can give for this book is that after I finished reading it: I built a chicken tractor and got myself 20 chicks to raise (in the front yard of my condo). I even wrote Joel Salatin a letter, letting him know that I was interested in an internship with Polyface Inc. Six months later the chickens have been eaten, and I'll wait until I have more land to try again - but if you're looking for good advice on how to start (with what you already have) and what qualities you'll need to have to start a successful consumer-direct farm or market garden there is no better book for you to purchase. It was so compelling that I kept the book for a second read.

Highly recommended!

Dominic Ebacher
ebacherdom.blogspot.com
051007.1800