- What makes Polyface so successful? Locate and summarize the passages where Pollan describes the key features of this farm.
There are many reasons why Polyface farm is so successful, One of those reasons is how self sufficient it is. For example when chickens defacate, it fertilizes the grass below, making the farm self sufficient in terms of nitrogen. Another case that makes polyface successful is the different ways they’ve created chickens to benefit other animals. For instance, when the chickens eat insect larvae and parasites which breaks down cycle of disease, and how the chickens pick up the manure of the cows, and in turn that fertilizes the grass, so the cows can eat the grass again. Another way of looking at this is how Joel uses his cows manure to give the chickens protein themselves, which helps the chickens stay healthy. The act of sanitizing a pasture by chickens. This is the cycle that Polyface has set up, animals helping other animals.
- What is a holon? Use Pollan’s text to define the term and to offer examples. Then apply the concept to another area by locating your own example of a holon.
A holon is an entity that from one perspective appears a self contained whole and from another a dependent part. Pollan states that a liver and a turkey are holons. Pollan might mean that a liver filters whatever comes into it, so it’s a contained whole and it is also dependent on other body parts to get the food and liquid from and then where to put that food and liquid after it’s been filtered. My example of a holon is a person. A person can live on his/her own so it’s considered a self contained whole, but humans are also dependent on food and water to live. A car is a holon, it operates on it’s own and could be considered a contained whole, cars do depend on electricity or gas to operate.
3. How does the industrial food production system define “efficiency”? How is “efficiency” defined in natural systems? To what degree, and in what terms, is Polyface Farm “efficient?”
The industrial food production system defines “efficiency” as economics of scale that can be achieved by application of technology and standardization. This resembles simplification, doing things the same over and over again. Industrial food production permitted standardization and mechanization to be very efficient, this is called monoculture.
Efficiency in natural terms is achieved by co evolutionary relationships and reciprocal loops. Efficiency of natural systems is the exact opposite of efficiency of industrial food production, it’s complex and interdependence. Using many species of animals vs. just one animal or just one crop like a industrial level farm would.
The Polyface farm is efficient in that it has a constant cycle of behavior that has never ending benefits for the farm and its animals. The animals help each other through biological behavior like eating and defacating, and the farmers help the environment by moving the chicken pens 10 feet everyday to keep from overgrassing.
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