Symbiosis--The Circle of Life

The members of almost every ecosystem in nature--be it barnyard, garden, pond or beach--engage in a continuous, mutually beneficial set of transactions (sort of like a truly free-market economy:)). Maximum benefit is usually obtained when minimal human interference is present.  Symbiosis as it relates to sustenance for humans is  sometimes called Permaculture and simply means living, landscaping, growing soil, growing food, raising livestock--among other things--in a way that enhances and catalyzes vibrant, clean life and minimizes disease all without the use of toxic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, or any other "cides."

Author and natural farmer, Joel Salatin, operates Polyface Farms with symbiosis as his mantra, explaining his passion this way:

Our mission statement is simple: to develop environmentally, emotionally, and economically enhancing agricultural prototypes and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.

Ultimately, this means we're in the healing business: land, health, and economy. We do this by trying, as closely as possible, to duplicate nature's templates, or patterns. In nature, ecosystem exercise occurs via disturbance and rest. Fire is both a destructive and regenerative agent. A herd of buffalo or wildebeest is also a destructive and regenerative agent. The disturbance-rest cycle freshens the ecology, exercising it to greater diversity and ultimately, to more conversion of solar energy into biomass. The biomass growth, harvest, and decomposition cycle is what builds soil.

Natural systems rely primarily on fire, herbivores, and perennials to maintain this carbon cycle. Nature doesn't till, except in rare occasions like volcanoes or floods. Tillage should be a last resort. The centerpiece of virtually all civilizations is the herbivore, both for draft power as well as nutrient density because prior to cheap energy and machinery, the herbivore could thrive on perennials. Until extremely recent times, tillage was expensive and difficult.

In nature, animals move around. They don't stay in the same place. In fact, this is the way nature moves fertility that naturally gravitates from ridges and slopes into valleys; back up onto the high ground. Predation pushes animals to sleep and lounge on high ground so the prey can see their adversaries. This maintains the fertility cycle.

In nature, animals and plants have symbiotic relationships. You don't see mono-cultures and mono-species in nature; everything has an intricate relationship that stimulates health and ecological progress.

As a result of these patterns, on our farm, we minimize tillage to the garden and keep everything in perennials. Although we buy grain from neighbors, we utilize our perennials, both grasslands and forests, in a way to make sure the omnivores (chickens, turkeys, and pigs) ingest as much perennial as possible. Tillage destroys soil. The less we till, the better. And yet our culture subsidizes six tillage species to stimulate their cultivation--to the unprecedented detriment of our soil and nutrition.

We move the animals daily to new paddocks using high tech electric fencing and lightweight portable shelters. This portable infrastructure, invented only in recent decades, enables large production, for the first time in human history, to be done in a more hygienic, sanitary, animal friendly, and ecologically-enhancing way than ever before. We live in marvelous times.

In the winter, chickens, pigs, and rabbits move into hoop houses (tall tunnels) on mezzanine floors and deep bedding to stay warm. When they come back out to pasture in the spring, these hoop houses are planted in vegetables for season extension and space utilization. We let animals do the work. Chickens follow the cows in egg-mobiles, sanitizing the pastures, scratching through the dung, and converting grasshoppers and crickets into the best eggs in the world. Pigaerators convert deep winter bedding from hay-fed cows into wonderful aerobic compost, which feeds the carbon cycle and supplies the farm's fertilizer.

Movement, carbon cycling, portability, rest, and periodic disturbance (grazing) offer intricate bio-mimicry, higher production than average, and a most fascinating life. 
Source: CountryFarm Lifestyles 

Check out Joel's principles here. It's all good--very good. I'm thankful for men like Joel who are comitted to sustainable agriculture and speak the truth with boldness and grace.