Airdate: Week of21 augustus 1998
In the United States, the average American consumes an average of 90 pounds of chicken annually. Millions of chickens are raised and slaughtered every few weeks. Most of them are locked up in gigantic chicken coops for their entire short lives and then killed on an assembly line. But a small but growing number of farmers are discovering that raising modest herds outdoors can be more profitable and environmentally friendly than massive operations. The secret is high-tech fencing and a keen sense of timing, which keeps the chickens moving every day to a fresh spot in the pasture. Joel Salatin is an important promoter of this method. Life on Earth Kim Motylewski met him on his farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.
Translation
CURWOOD: I'm Steve Curwood with an extra edition of Living on Earth.
People here in the US eat a lot of chicken. By some estimates, about 75 pounds per year for the average American. The big appetite has made meat birds a big business. Millions of chickens are raised and slaughtered every few weeks, and most of them are locked up in giant chicken coops for their entire lives and then killed on an assembly line. The old-fashioned backyard chicken has all but disappeared from America, except for a small but growing number of farmers who are discovering that raising modest flocks outdoors can be more profitable and easier on the environment than the massive operations. The secret: make sure the chickens move to a fresh spot in the pasture every day. Joel Salatin is an important promoter of this method. Life on Earth Kim Motylewski met him on his farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.
(The sound of driving on gravel)
MOTYLEWSKI: At the end of the gravel driveway at Polyface Farm there is an old wooden house and a new mobile home. Here in the small town of Swope, Virginia, Joel Salatin wrote and published Pastured Poultry Profits in 1993. The book sold thousands, and now farmers, economists and entrepreneurs flock here, eager, curious or disbelieving to observe the self-described events. crazy farmer, who practiced his trade on 100 open hectares behind the houses.
(Footstep on gravel)
SALATIN: What we're looking at here is a 20-acre field with 31 of these 10-by-10-by-20-foot floorless pens. So these are almost like you could call them little portable cabins, if you like.
(birds sing)
MOTYLEWSKI: About 90 birds live in each coop. They nibble on grass, clover and legumes for vitamins and minerals. Insects provide proteins and the ground is a good place to scratch. But chickens can't live on grass alone, so Mr. Salatin also distributes rations: corn, grain, beans and seaweed. The idea is to mimic a bird's natural diet, save on feed costs and avoid what he calls the drugs, disease and filth of commercial farms.
(ringing metal)
SALATIN: If you lived with your nose in a bottle of bleach all the time, you'd get sick too.
(Chickens cluck)
SALATIN: And that's the way most animals live in captivity.
(The cackling continues)
MOTYLEWSKI: The Salatins raise about 3,000 chickens at a time. An industrial manufacturer can quickly raise 50,000 euros in a cramped courtyard. Here the field smells sweet. There are no houses to clean and no manure-filled lagoons emptying into the river. Just the gradual fertilization of the fields as broilers, lagers and turkeys march across them.
SALATIN: Go to the pin with the doll here and just slide it under and it acts as a kind of transportable shaft and a pry bar. And then just grab the handle on the other end. And now the coop just rolls on those lawnmower wheels on that dolly, and the chickens just go out into the pasture. They get a completely fresh salad bar, and all the clovers, crickets and grasshoppers that go with it. They get away from their manure and stuff, get a fresh place to relax. And we do that every day. It takes about 30 seconds and there you go.
(Birds chirping; metal ringing, ringing)
MOTYLEWSKI: Luckily it's soon, because the Salatins have a lot to do. Joel, his wife Theresa and their two children collect 90 dozen eggs a day, herd cattle to new fields (they are also grass-fed), nurse pigs, milk Polly the cow and fix anything that breaks.
(Schoolwater)
MOTYLEWSKI: So Mr. Salatin has arranged for the animals to help with the work. An example: grazing cattle are sensitive to parasites and flies that breed in manure piles. But instead of injecting every cow with dewormer, Mr. Salatin sends the egg mobile, a trailer full of laying hens, out to pasture.
SALATIN: Chickens there are free-range, scratching through the cow patties, eating the fly larvae and producing eggs, about $4,000 to $5,000 worth of eggs. Basically it didn't cost us a cent. We didn't have to add to the queues. We never had an argument about the children. Everyone happy, the cows happy, we happy. And that's just a byproduct of the grass cleanup program.
MOTYLEWSKI: If you ask conventional growers about grazing, they say any savings on medicine or feed will be lost in the extra time and effort it takes to grow this way. Chickens from factory farms are ready for market in about six weeks. Grasshoppers take seven to eight weeks to mature. But Joel Salatin says he will lead the way. And not just in kronen and øre. He loves this land, the work and sharing it with his family, from fluffy chick to featherless carcass.
(A protesting chicken)
MOTYLEWSKI: Every few weeks in the summer, Joel's mother, wife and children, and sometimes his brother's family, get together to dress chickens in the backyard.
(clinking metal)
D. SALATIN: They're killed in cones, upside down, and once they're dead they go to the scalder, and then they go on to the picker for about 15 seconds. They come out perfectly clean, without feathers, etc. to the take-out table and on to the cooling tanks.
MOTYLEWSKI: Sixteen-year-old Daniel is the first link in a simple assembly line of seven people. The family will treat approximately 300 birds in 3 hours this morning.
(Water splashes, metal rattling)
J. SALATIN: Yeah, we don't mess around when it comes to this. This is a sprint. But this gives us the freshest, freshest bird possible to actually make the morning the customer picks them up. They are literally just a few hours away from the field. And it's as fresh as can be.
MOTYLEWSKI: There is no broken intestines in this process. No chlorine pools. And according to the Salatins, less chance of illness. These birds look lovely, plump, plump and sparkling clean.
(Water splashes; voices in the background)
MOTYLEWSKI: Research commissioned by the family shows that their bodies are cleaner, their birds are leaner and their eggs are healthier than those from most store brands. Poultry researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are testing these health claims.
L. SALATIN: Of course, the people who come, who get our chickens and say: ah, just like grandma used to grow! (laughing)
MOTYLEWSKI: According to Joel's mother Lucille, demand for Polyface products exceeds supply.
MAN: Hey, hey!
WOMAN: How are you?
MAN: It's okay, what about you?
WOMAN: Very good.
MOTYLEWSKI: Four hundred families shop at the farm. Most customers are local, but some travel up to 200 miles to buy chicken, turkey, beef and eggs.
MAN: Twelve pieces, with extra liver.
MOTYLEWSKI: Without middlemen, profits are healthy. Many customers say they will never go back to store-bought chicken, even though the birds cost $1.45 each. pounds are about twice as expensive as commercial pounds.
WOMAN: Oh, I think it's worth it. It is part of the cost of caring for our environment. I truly believe it's pay now or later and I would much rather support a local business and take care of our environment in this area as well.
(Ambient voices; fades to ringing)
JOY: My name is Lisa Joy. I'm the pastry chef here at Joshua Wilton House. I am also a catering director.
MOTYLEWSKI: Chef Lisa Joy started cooking with Salatin's chickens and eggs several years ago. Now she sells Polyface products to 20 other restaurants in Virginia and the Capitol.
JOY: This is a white chocolate cake with lemon curd and blueberries. Oops, and it's my timer, I'll grab some pies.
MOTYLEWSKI: Between the dessert and breakfast dishes, this kitchen uses 60 dozen eggs a week, and Chef Joy says she can see and taste the difference.
JOY: At times when I can't get their eggs, or if I've helped out at another restaurant that doesn't serve eggs, I make a pie, then look and go, what's going on? And then I realize it's the eggs, because the cake is just not as golden, not as moist, and not as rich.
MOTYLEWSKI: What about the chickens and working with the chickens? What do you notice as a chef?
JOY: Often when catering or larger parties you have to cut up 1 or 2 boxes of chicken at a time. When I cut commercial chickens, my hand is swollen after I cut them. That, you know, there's something in the chicken that gets in your hands and if you have some cuts or something, it swells up. I can cut Joel's chickens, you know, that's the equivalent, and my hands are normal. And there's no smell, no, you know, anything. Nice and fresh.
MOTYLEWSKI: The Salatins welcome restaurant customers, but the family is wary of two things: growth and regulation. Lucille Salatin.
L. SALATIN: Our intention is not to supply the world. We try to provide our neighbors and people in the area who want this type of food. And there are a lot of people who don't care; they're just going to get the cheapest one they can get. And if they want to be regulated and have it all that way, that's their business. But we would like the people who are really interested in being healthy and want those kinds of things to have the freedom to do that if they want to.
MOTYLEWSKI: But not everyone lives within easy reach of a farm, and this method focuses on small-scale production. Skeptics therefore dismiss grass-fed poultry as impractical for feeding large urban populations. Joel Salatin doesn't expect his model to replace the industrial model, but he sees producers like him popping up everywhere and recreating local food networks that can feed more and more people. Mr. Salatin says his clients are starting to understand the bigger picture, and it gives him chills.
SALATIN: Yes, they really decided: We're going to take control of our destiny and we're going to do something about it. We're not going to march on Washington, we're not going to ask for government programs, and we're not going to ask Ralph Nader to come and protect us. We want to build a relationship with our food supply. We need to eat fresh, local, raw and unpackaged, we need to find our cuisine again and make eating fun, and those are wonderful things.
(Ambient voices and chuckles)
MOTYLEWSKI: For Living on Earth is Kim Motylewski in Swope, Virginia.
SALATIN: This is doing something for yourself. It's the old, independent American spirit that says, okay, you can eat Big Macs if you want, but we need to eat something that's actually healthy and nutritious. And something that we actually touched, touched, smelled...
