Polyface Farm is best described as "a gathering of many faces around the table." Owned and stewarded by the Joel Salatin family, Polyface hosts a variety of creatures in natural symbiotic relationships, with food as the natural attractor. Managing a farm around food honors William R. Inge's observation that "all of nature is a conjugation of the verb 'to eat,' in the active and in the passive."

On Salatin's farm, made famous in Michael Pollan's bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma, cattle graze to prepare for the movement of floorless chicken pens over the pastures. The chickens eat clover, bugs, and other feed to produce manure that fertilizes the grass the cattle eat. Humans eat the meat of both animals, then compost the offal from the butchering process, and spread it back on the land to feed the grass. Each creature fits into the system by doing what it does best: eat. Salatin's genius is that he patiently observes the way things eat together in nature and structures his farm accordingly. ...