Where Joel Salatin Would Invest $1 Million in Agriculture

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

US agriculture is in the doldrums, with farm bankruptcies doubling in 2025 versus 2024.

Salatin argues agriculture is in a downturn. He cites WSJ carrying agriculture stories every two days as a sign of trouble, farm bankruptcies doubling from 2024 to 2025, soybean farmers losing about $100 an acre in 2025, and USDA projecting corn farmers will lose $100 to $200 an acre this year. He compares the current stress to the early 2000s, when there were thousands of bankruptcies and suicide hotlines were set up.

“the basic theme throughout agriculture right now is that agriculture is in the doldrums.”at 1:29

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

300,000 metric tons of cheap lean trim imports knocked the cattle market down 10% overnight.

Salatin says the administration brought in 300,000 metric tons of subsidized, below-market lean trim, and the cattle market fell 10% overnight. In his area, ranchers are boycotting the sale barn and holding back fall calves while waiting for the 90-day import measure to run its course and prices to recover. He frames the imports as a distortion that a subsidized foreign product can cause.

“Trump brought in this 300,000 metric tons of subsidized below market lean trim. And it dropped the cattle market 10% literally overnight.”at 2:31

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Beef cattle are the canary in the coal mine; their weakness will spread across US agriculture.

Salatin argues the cattle sector is a leading indicator for American agriculture. Beef cattle return the least income per acre of any farm enterprise, so they sit at the bottom of the income barrel. Cattle farmers are also 5 to 10 years older than other farmers, and most cattle operations are hobbies run by people with off-farm jobs. Input costs for labor, land, energy and diesel have risen faster since 2006 than beef prices, so margins are squeezed even at high beef prices. He expects the system's weaknesses to show up across agriculture about five to ten years out, while admitting he is not a prophet.

“I think the cattle right now are the canary in the coal mine.”at 5:15

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Chemical-free biological farms are insulated from fertilizer price spikes like the 2022 nitrogen surge.

Salatin says his farm buys no fertilizer, herbicides or other chemicals and relies on compost, biology and in-situ fertility. When nitrogen prices rose about 400% within weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, his farm was unaffected. He argues conventional row-crop farms that depend on bought inputs are exposed to these input shocks, which feed into the broader cost pressure on agriculture.

“when Putin invaded Ukraine and nitrogen went up 400%, think about that, in literally in weeks, it didn't affect our farm at all because we don't buy any of it.”at 10:12

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

US crop output exceeds demand: half the soybean crop is exported and corn feeds subsidized ethanol.

Salatin argues the crops US farmers grow are not what the world needs. About half the US soybean crop is exported and not used domestically. Almost half the corn goes to heavily subsidized ethanol, and about half the alfalfa, much of it irrigated, is exported to Japan and Saudi Arabia to feed racehorses. He says up to a third of US output never goes to food, which makes the system fragile.

“the world simply doesn't need the crops that we're producing right now... Right now, half of the American soybean crop is exported.”at 10:50

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Farmland prices already falling about 10% on higher interest rates, unwinding a COVID-era bubble.

Salatin says land prices in his area dropped substantially over the last year because of higher interest rates. In the last three or four months they fell about 10%, for example from $10,000 to $9,000 an acre. He ties the earlier run-up to COVID-era stimulus and wealthy buyers seeking safe havens, which he calls an artificially inflated bubble. That pressure has now dissipated.

“In the last three or four months, we've seen them actually drop fairly substantially. I mean, like, you know, 10% probably.”at 21:39

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Farmers' share of the retail food dollar fell from 40 cents to 5.8 cents, driven by convenience food.

Salatin cites the farmer's share of the grocery dollar falling from about 40 cents over the last seventy years to 5.8 cents today. He attributes this to the convenience food movement, where more processing and handling happen before food reaches the kitchen. As the farmer's share shrinks, the farm-gate value of commodity production drops.

“in other words, if somebody bought a dollar at the grocery store, the farmer got 40¢ of it. Today the farmer gets 5.8¢ of that dollar, which is indicative of the convenience food movement.”at 22:42

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Direct-to-consumer sales let a stacked pasture farm earn far more per acre than commodity crops.

Salatin says his farm grosses over $30,000 an acre by stacking cattle, broilers, laying hens and turkeys on the same acres at different times and selling retail. A good corn farm might make about $800 an acre. He also gives an example in which a $2.20 pastured bird on about 600 birds per acre grosses $12,000 an acre. If the bird is sold as a boxed chicken pot pie for about $200, the gross rises to $120,000 an acre. The gain comes from capturing the retail dollar.

“we're taking in over $30,000 an acre gross on what we're doing.”at 24:23

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Buying rural farmland is a way to protect wealth; land ownership is economic defense.

Salatin relays a view from his mentor that land ownership is economic defense and land management is economic offense. He says that with money to protect, buying rural land is the way to do it. He notes that his farm has helped seven people buy land that the farm then manages for them, while they keep their town jobs. He presents this as an alternative to a traditional 401(k).

“So if you have money and you want to protect it, you buy land, especially rural land.”at 25:33

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Converting 1,000 acres from soybeans to intensive cattle costs about $300,000, equal to one year's soy inputs.

Salatin ran an analysis of a hypothetical 1,000-acre Nebraska soybean farm converting to intensively managed cattle. Fencing, water and other infrastructure come to about $300,000 in one-time capital. That equals what the farm spends each year to plant a soybean crop, so he calls it a once-a-century capital cost. He notes the main hurdle is buying the cattle at today's high prices.

“The entire capital conversion was $300,000. Guess what? That's exactly what it costs to put in every year a soybean crop.”at 29:39

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Food regulation favors big packers; small processors pay several times more per animal.

Salatin says four companies (Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef) process 85% of US beef. He argues the answer is not antitrust litigation but letting more farmers reach the market. Federal inspection requirements are scale-prejudicial. His federally inspected slaughterhouse spends about $650 to process a beef, versus about $150 at Tyson. Requirements such as an inspector's office and bathroom are spread over about 50 beef a week, against 5,000 a day at Tyson. Hides that a small plant cannot fill a container with end up in landfill.

“It takes us roughly $650 to do to a beef what Tyson does for $150”at 38:57

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Synthetic materials replaced leather, collapsing hide values to near zero for livestock producers.

Salatin recalls that hides once fetched about $50 each. He says that hides now have close to zero value because synthetic nylon and polyester now go into car seats instead of leather. He describes the impact on a small farm, which can lose about $100,000 a year from the drop in hide income. The mechanism is substitution away from leather in auto interiors, which removed demand for a livestock byproduct.

“I'm old enough to remember when we used to get $50 for a hide. And so suddenly a small plant just lose $100,000 a year because of synthetic nylon and polyester materials that now go into car seats instead of leather car seats.”at 39:49

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Food-processing regulation makes small-scale value-added production uneconomic, favoring megafarms.

Salatin says that to sell a heat-and-eat chicken pot pie to consumers, he would need a $500,000 inspected, licensed, zoned commissary, which makes small-scale chicken production not worth pursuing. He says the same pattern applies to every value-added route, such as a poultry slaughterhouse, a big kitchen or a food truck, where a bureaucrat can block the operation unless the farmer makes a roughly $300,000 investment. He argues this regulatory burden favors the mega-operators and stifles embryonic startups. He notes that only about 5% of American food is processed and packaged outside the home, a share he says has never been higher, so the scale-up barrier is a key constraint on the sector.

“in order for me to get that chicken to you, I now have to have a $500,000 inspected, licensed, zoned commissary.”at 41:17

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Passive farmland buying is a poor bet; invest in direct-marketing, value-adding farmers instead.

Salatin says he sees no great future in simply buying farmland that is being abused, unprofitable and on a downhill trajectory. His alternative is to find farmers who direct market and value-add, ask whether they could use more land, and then enable them to expand. The implied investment is in the operator's business model and savvy, not in land as a passive asset. He backs this with his own examples: a whole-animal, direct-to-consumer model where processing and retail are kept in-house, and his argument that the independent farmer is the growth opportunity.

“I don't see a great future in simply buying land that is continuing to be abused and unprofitable and on this downhill trajectory. So find your person and invest in that person's savvy.”at 47:33

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

China's 2030 food import-independence push will keep it from buying US soybeans and feedstocks.

Salatin says China has an internal plan to be food and feedstock import independent by 2030. After China halted soybean imports, it relented under US trade pressure and bought some, but he argues the 2030 goal still amounts to a moratorium on imported feedstocks, especially from the US. With 2030 only a few seasons away, he expects weaker demand for US soybeans and grains.

“But China has an internal projection sheet that they want to be completely food independent by 2030, food import independent by 2030, including grains and feedstocks.”at 11:12

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Farm subsidies distort crop choices and inflate land values; the taxpayer will not keep funding them.

Salatin argues subsidies distort the market. Six crops are subsidized, five of them edible, so the subsidies pull farmland toward crops nobody needs. He cites a $12 billion soybean bailout last year after China stopped buying. He says subsidies inflate farmland prices because owners can profit even when their product is not needed, and that the taxpayer will eventually stop accepting artificially produced surplus.

“last year, Trump gave the soybean farmers a $12,000,000,000 bailout”at 13:45

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

Parcel delivery now makes direct-to-consumer farm food shipping cheaper than urban farmers' markets.

Salatin says distribution logistics have fallen substantially in cost while bricks-and-mortar retail costs have risen. His farm in rural Virginia can now ship four dozen eggs to any US city more cheaply than they sell at a city farmers' market. He ties this to urban cost pressures such as high taxes and city dysfunction, which raise the cost of doing business. He calls it a new opportunity for independent farmers: if a farm can get onto a UPS or FedEx truck, its addressable market is national. He says this has only become possible in the last decade.

“We can now ship four dozen eggs to any city in The US cheaper than they can buy them at farmer's market.”at 49:12

Joel Salatin · Polyface Farm

High taxes and dysfunction in big cities raise business costs, pushing activity toward rural producers.

Salatin says that the cost of living in urban areas reflects high taxes and dysfunction in big cities, which raises the cost of doing business there. He presents this as the reason rural farms can now ship products into urban markets at lower prices. He links the urban cost pressure to the rising cost of bricks-and-mortar retail, which in turn improves the economics of direct delivery from farms.

“there's a lot of dysfunction in our big cities. And that raises the cost of doing business.”at 49:34