.
After his altering experience to Polyface Farm, Pollan came to the conclusion that Salatin held the answer to animal rights. The solution to Pollan's question of eating animals was to eat meat only from farms that took care of the animals as much as Polyface Farm. Pollan and Salatin know that if other people were able to see the harsh slaughterhouses of America, they would turn "to farmers like Salatin" (Pollan 129). Both Pollan and Salatin feel that Polyface Farm is the start of something new, and it should be used across the United States. They both hope that farms that know the importance of not the speed of production, but have the respect of the animals in the production, is what farms will eventually evolve into.
I have a different opinion towards Polyface Farm. Yes, as a person I feel that this is a good way for America's farm to become, but realistically would be a poor solution. The demand for meat in America is very strong, and the process of Salatin's slaughtering is too slow. Therefore, the public's demand for the meat will out-weigh the production rate of a farm like Polyface Farm. The agribusiness industry will always need mass production slaughterhouses because there are more people who want the meat than who cares where it comes from.
Animal rightists, who do care where the meat is coming from, suggest that some day speciesism will be comparable to racism. This meaning, that the way people treating animals today, will be looked at as the way America treated slaves. J.M. Coetzee is a South African novelist that states that if animal rightists are right, "a crime of stupefying proportions" (Coetzee in Pollan 121) is going around us every day. By this, Coetzee means that one day the people of today will be looked down upon for their atrocious ways of treating animals.
When Pollan first hears this theory of speciesism one day being compared to racism, he has a troubling time in believing the statement of Coetzee.
