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  • You Can Farm

  • The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise
  • Written by: Joel Salatin
  • Narrated by: Joel Salatin
  • Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (89 ratings)

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You Can Farm cover art

You Can Farm

Written by: Joel Salatin
Narrated by: Joel Salatin
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Publisher's Summary

Have you ever desired, deep within your soul, to make a comfortable full-time living from a farming enterprise? Too often people dare not even vocalize this desire because it seems absurd. It's like thinking the unthinkable. 

After all, the farm population is dwindling. It takes too much capital to start. The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: Not the place to raise a family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers. 

But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater. The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities. 

While this audiobook can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities. "Is it really possible for me?" is the burning question this audiobook addresses.

You Can Farm is wonderfully narrated by the author, Joel Salatin, who co-owns (with his family) Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia.

©2018 Joel Salatin (P)2020 Echo Point Books & Media, LLC

What listeners say about You Can Farm

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Self promotional in a huge way, but also very useful, down-to-earth advice about farming.

Very good. Self promotional in a huge way, but also very useful, down-to-earth advice about farming. Also, his notion is perfect for every endeavor: If you want to farm and you aren't farming right now, what are you doing? Don't wait for something like owning land, and indeed question the necessity of owning land.

Here and there, we snowballed from apples with spots to government conspiracies, but he has a reasonable mistrust of the government as a farmer. He and fellow author farmers, such as John Klar, have found it a necessity to either avoid or legally challenge government regulations that would put them out of business. As Elinor Ostrom showed in Governing the Commons, government intervention can only strengthen the local governance over their common resources, such as soil, ecosystems, farmland, water, etc., when the government supports the local law of the land. Otherwise, she concluded, government regulation is counterproductive.

There are a very few points where I cannot find any common grounds with Joel Salatin. There are a few, but not worth mentioning. In fact, he may yet convince me that charging high prices is the best thing. I can see how it conforms to the viewpoint of a free market economics fan, but I remain unconvinced that money can ever do anyone any good. If you can feed yourself and share gifts of this and that with your community, or barter as you like, that's good enough, I think. I realize this would mean an end to smartphones and audiobooks. I realize a shift too quickly away from money would be a human catastrophe. I think people with money are like plants on fert. Going cold turkey can be counterproductive, and the turnover to a better, more wholeistic and satisfying system should be done gradually with care. I think local communities can provide that care because that is the traditional role of the community.

But back to Mr. Salatin's book. There are a few intersections with my own life here, such as my brother having moved to Venezuela and is living there as a permaculturalist farmer who also brings good and community to his village. There is the dad who homesteaded. And I think this is a hidden gem from the book: even if you start late, you leave an impression on your children.

I personally want to take this beyond farming to hunting and gathering. If you like grass-fed cows, consider truly free-range deer. Consider too the traditional role humans have played in our ecosystems in almost all of human history, including in present day, as hunters and foragers. Food forests are my interest.

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Friendly book to farming

Not only how but how to be good farmer
It’s important book even if you just want to buy your food

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The how of Proverbs 31. Finally! Praise Yahweh

May your walk in truth be richly blessed with peace, health, and the presence of Yah.

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Inspiring!

Building confidence as I navigate my way from the 9-5 and into the farm

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amazing

this is the third of Joles books that I have read and I think it might be my favorite. definitely five stars in every category and I found it extremely helpful as I navigate my way through my new country life. I'm definitely going to buy the hardcover so that I can do quick references

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A great read for any aspiring farmer

loved it, easy to listen to, straightforward, perfect for the person who want to farm for themselves or hoping to make a living

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great book

great book lived the story and narration. very inspiring will listen to more thanks

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Amazing advice as good as any adventure story

inspiring and honest advice is all I can actually state about this book. 100% indoctrinated future food grower, I am amazed in the abundance of information in this man. and thankful that his books have found me.

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So much great information

Getting started on a permaculture farm, this book is a must read. Highly recommend to anyone.

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Really helpful for those dreaming of a new life

It was long and detailed, in places dated, but a really thorough and helpful guide to starting in entrepreneurial agriculture. His discussion of what NOT to do was as helpful as what TO do.

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