Bill Text: VA HR450 | 2024 | Regular Session | Enrolled
Bill Title: Commending Polyface Farm.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 3-0)
Status: (Passed) 2024-03-08 - Bill text as passed House (HR450ER) [HR450 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2024-HR450-Enrolled.html
WHEREAS, for more than 60 years, Polyface Farm in Augusta County has been owned and operated by the Salatin family; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Salatin of Anderson, Indiana, was a charter subscriber to Robert Rodale's Organic Gardening and Farming magazine when it began publication in the mid-1940s and instilled in his son William (Bill) a love of compost, soil, and nutrition; and
WHEREAS, a veteran of the United States Navy who served during World War II, Bill Salatin dreamed of owning a farm in a developing country, and after earning a business degree on the GI Bill from Indiana University, he spent several years in Venezuela as a bilingual accountant with Texas Oil Company to put together equity to buy a rural property, which he did; and
WHEREAS, the Salatin family began direct marketing broilers to the area, with a vision of adding dairy, and with two sons coming on for a bright farming future; and
WHEREAS, with the rise of a military junta and ensuing anarchy, the land was eventually expropriated and the family lost everything, returning stateside on Easter Sunday 1961 and starting over that year by purchasing arguably the most gullied rockpile in Augusta County; and
WHEREAS, all the advice for successful farming included buying chemicals, borrowing money, planting corn, grazing the fragile woodlots, and other unacceptable practices for Bill Salatin, who eschewed orthodoxy and embarked instead on innovations in controlled grazing, composting, portable livestock infrastructure, water protection and enhancement, perennial pastures, and multi-speciation; and
WHEREAS, one of Bill Salatin's children, Joel, loved the homestead the Salatins had created and paid for with off-farm income, with Bill working as an accountant and Lucille as a health and physical education high school teacher, and he dreamed of making farming his full-time career; and
WHEREAS, Joel Salatin joined 4H and won many state honors, partly for developing a direct marketed, pastured poultry enterprise and selling the farm's fledgling wares at the Staunton Curb Market from 1970 to 1975; and
WHEREAS, in 1982, after a two-year stint as an investigative reporter for the Staunton News Leader, Joel Salatin left outside employment to see if he and his wife, Teresa Wenger Salatin, could as third-generation farm dreamers, finally make their dreams a reality; and
WHEREAS, to create a brand and identify a vision the Salatin family incorporated Polyface, the Farm of Many Faces, in 1982, with the mission statement "to develop environmentally, economically, and emotionally enhancing agricultural prototypes and facilitate their duplication throughout the world"; and
WHEREAS, Polyface Farm did indeed succeed with pastured poultry, salad bar beef, "pigaerator" pork, rabbits, lamb, duck, and turkeys, the operation gradually scaled up to now support more than 20 full-time salaries and added acreage, including rocks covered with soil, gullies growing trees, and 12 miles of gravity-fed high pressure water from permaculture style high terrain ponds; and
WHEREAS, Joel Salatin has produced 16 books on farming topics and the Polyface Farm information network includes worldwide speaking engagements, on-farm seminars, gatherings in the Lunatic Learning Center, video curricula, podcasts, and blogs; and
WHEREAS, Daniel Salatin, the next generation of the Salatin family to operate Polyface Farm, is now running day-to-day operations, along with directing formal training through stewardship and apprenticeship to germinate new farmers; and
WHEREAS, thousands and thousands of visitors from around the world visit Polyface Farm for ideas, inspiration, and innovation to adapt to their own enterprises; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, That Polyface Farm hereby be commended for more than 60 years of contributions to the agricultural sector in the Commonwealth; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the Salatin family as an expression of the House of Delegates' admiration for the success of Polyface Farm.
