Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms
August 30th, 2007For me, comprehension of the way industrial scale (including “Organic”) food worked was the last straw. Many aspects of politics and society are disturbing, but toxic—and or long distance—food isn’t some theoretical, far out, future threat. The wolf is at the door. It’s right here, right now. The food issue, more than anything else, drove me and my wife to take what some might consider to be drastic action. We call it Farmlet.
Understanding food is critical to understanding modern fascist politico-economic systems. More importantly, this understanding leads one down a path to personal empowerment, good health and a sane relationship with the natural world. Of course, lots of activities that contribute to these positive outcomes are overtly illegal in much of the “developed” world.
If you like Farmlet, take a look at Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms. Get ready to be amazed and inspired:
Beyond Organic: The Story of Polyface Farms (Two hour talk; excellent!)
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
The only fortunate part of living in Virginia is the fact that I can directly support the Salatins and the Polyface philosophy. There are a surprising number of farm co-ops (selling subversive wares like raw milk) in my area, which is great.
I can also highly recommend “Michael Pollan – The Omnivore’s Dilemma” if you want to get a good insight into ‘modern’ food production.
The author compares ‘modern’ food production Vs Polyface farm. (Polyface rocks!)
Regards of the ‘troll’ problem having to register really sucks. I don’t need to produce my passport to have a conversation in the pub, so why the net?
Registration just propagates the myth that we have to have an ‘official’ identify to function in todays society.
Crytogon is a bright light in the darkness its sad that it has submitted to the darkness of the Panopticon.
A
What I’ve done–actually I’ve done nothing, so far–is to speak to the local city manager and also the manager of our local, dying, mall, about organizing a regular farmer’s market. I have my doubts that either will seriously pursue this idea, but at least I tried.
I am also planning to start a local organic gardening group, probably right after Christmas. The idea will be to provide and share information among people interested in vegetable gardening.
I think it’s imperative that people start growing their own food. So few people know how–or even know where to begin.
Our local public library provides a free meeting room for just about any kind of group that wants to meet. All you have to do is schedule in.
I like to think that we will create a nucleus of people who will promote home gardens, and who have knowledge and skills to share.
Perhaps the best way to defend ourselves against the starving hordes–which is what many of us foresee–is to take steps now to assure that the hordes aren’t starving, because everyone in town has a productive garden. (Okay, that’s too much to hope for….)
Sharon – I think what you’re doing is the most sensible thing we can do. When/if everything is settles down that’s how most people will be living so it makes sense to start now – and hopefully mitigate some of the problem. I don’t think it’s too much to hope for if the crash is slow enough and people have time to start growing stuff before the supermarket’s totally empty out.
I love Geoff Lawton’s (permaculturist) visions of abundance. If it were up to him we’d grow so much food that no matter how many people turned up there’d still be some left over.
People need to realize that the obiesity epidemic in the US is not because of food abundance or affluence.
What we are seeing is starvation.
The only “food” abundance is in the form of grease-soaked cardboard.
The nutrient starvation is masked by the high caloric intake–mostly fats and sugars. Many of the chronic health problems in the US migh be best described as illnesses arising from starvation. Ditto for mental and neurological problems.
You can keep an organism moving–for awhile–on sugars and fats. You can keep it moving for a bit longer if you throw methamphetamines into the mix. None of this stuff is food, however.
It has been pointed out that even the nutrient levels in fresh fruits and vegetables have been declining. I saw this mentioned at highbrixgardens.com. No link to the statistics there–but I think this is obvious to anyone who “grows their own.”
We’ve got a whole nation here that is starving on a regimen of cheap, calorie-dense foods.
I’m a grass-fed livestock farmer living near Joel Salatin and have visited his farm and bought his products many times. His new book “Everything I Want to Do is Illegal” does accurately reflect who Joel is: funny, blunt, knowledgeable (about some topics), charismatic, certainly a pioneer.
However, beware of making assumptions about Joel. The vast majority of his customers and fans are interested in organic foods, have an environmentalist bent, and are politically liberal. They may assume that Joel is like them — but be assured that he certainly is not. Joel hates all those things. He is a fundamentalist Christian creationist and his politics are somewhere to the right of Dick Cheney.
A few examples: He shoots any non-farm animal that comes on his property (including dogs, rare martens, and birds of prey), and does it with an enthusiasm that is disturbing for a so-called “poster boy for humane agriculture.” This “ecological farmer” opposes wilderness areas, endangered species protection, and farmland preservation and would like to see all land privatized to be milked for all its worth in the name of “property rights.” He compares animal-rights supporters and vegetarians to abortionists. And that’s just a few of the chapters!
While I agree with a number of his points — for example, that small-scale farmers should be exempt from regulations designed for corporate agribusinesses like Cargill or Tyson — his simplistic libertarianism is more appropriate for a college sophomore.
Yes, he pioneered pastured poultry and popularized grass-fed farming in general. The number of different profitable enterprises on his farm is remarkable. And anybody who can make a living farming these days should be congratulated. But this book shows him as a generic, naive libertarian wanna-be who has a persecution complex and a far higher opinion of himself than is deserved.
I highly recommend his other, more practical, books — “Salad Bar Beef” etc — instead of this angry right-wing rant. Let’s hope a more moderate farmer steps up as a spokesman for this critical paradigm shift in agriculture.