This ad will not display on your printed page.

Pastors

  • Send to printerSend to printer
  • |
  • Close this pageClose window
October 28, 2020
The following article is located at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2008/spring/12.88.html
CT Pastors, May 2008
Leadership
Tending or Processing?
Maybe sustainable agriculture is a better model for church life than a feed lot.
Jeff Hawkins|postedMay 30, 2008

Polyface Farm is best described as "a gathering of many faces around the table." Owned and stewarded by the Joel Salatin family, Polyface hosts a variety of creatures in natural symbiotic relationships, with food as the natural attractor. Managing a farm around food honors William R. Inge's observation that "all of nature is a conjugation of the verb 'to eat,' in the active and in the passive."

On Salatin's farm, made famous in Michael Pollan's bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma, cattle graze to prepare for the movement of floorless chicken pens over the pastures. The chickens eat clover, bugs, and other feed to produce manure that fertilizes the grass the cattle eat. Humans eat the meat of both animals, then compost the offal from the butchering process, and spread it back on the land to feed the grass. Each creature fits into the system by doing what it does best: eat. Salatin's genius is that he patiently observes the way things eat together in nature and structures his farm accordingly. ...

Subscriber access only You have reached the end of this Article Preview

To continue reading, subscribe to Christianity Today magazine. Subscribers have full digital access to CT Pastors articles.

Log InSubscribe

Already a CT subscriber? Log in for full digital access.

Christianity Today

© 2020 Christianity Today