No Bar Code
An evangelical Virginia farmer says a revolution against industrial agriculture is just down the road.
I might never have found my way to Polyface Farm if Joel Salatin hadn’t refused to FedEx me one of his chickens.
I’d heard a lot about the quality of the meat raised on his “beyond organic” farm, and was eager to sample some. Salatin and his family raise a half-dozen different species (grass-fed beef, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rabbits) in an intricate rotation that has made his 550 hilly acres of pasture and woods in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley one of the most productive and sustainable small farms in America. But when I telephoned Joel to ask him to send me a broiler, he said he couldn’t do that. I figured he meant he wasn’t set up for shipping, so I offered to have an overnight delivery service come pick it up.
“No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t believe it’s sustainable—‘organic,’ if you will—to FedEx meat all around the country,” Joel told me. “I’m afraid if you want to try one of our chickens, you’re going to have to drive down here to pick it up.”
This man was serious. He went on to explain that Polyface does not ship long distance, does not sell to supermarkets, and does not wholesale its food. All of the meat and eggs that Polyface produces is eaten within a few dozen miles or, at the most, half a day’s drive of the farm—within the farm’s “foodshed.” At first I assumed Joel’s motive for keeping his food chain so short was strictly environmental—to save on the prodigious quantities of fossil fuel Americans burn moving their food around the country and, increasingly today, the world. (The typical fruit or vegetable on an American’s plate travels some 1,500 miles to get there, and is frequently better traveled and more worldly than its eater.) But after taking Joel up on his offer to drive down to Swoope, Virginia, to pick up a chicken, I picked up a great deal more—about the renaissance of local food systems, and the values they support, values that go far beyond the ones a food buyer supports when he or she buys organic in the supermarket. It turns out that Joel Salatin, and the local food movement he’s become an influential part of, is out to save a whole lot more than energy.
In Joel’s view, the reformation of our food economy begins with people going to the trouble and expense of buying directly from farmers they know—“relationship marketing,” the approach he urges in his recent book, Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer’s Guide to Farm Friendly Food. Joel believes that the only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye, something few of us ever take the trouble to do. “Don’t you find it odd that people will put more work into choosing their mechanic or house contractor than they will into choosing the person who grows their food?”
Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm
Joel, who describes himself as a “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer,” speaks of his farming as his “ministry,” and certainly his 1,000 or so regular customers hear plenty of preaching. Each spring he sends out a long, feisty, single-spaced letter that could convince even a fast-food junkie that buying a pastured broiler from Polyface Farm qualifies as an act of social, environmental, nutritional, and political redemption.
“Greetings from the non-bar code people,” began one recent missive, before launching into a high-flying jeremiad against our disconnected “multi-national global corporate techno-glitzy food system” with its “industrial fecal factory concentration camp farms.” (The dangerous pileup of modifiers is a hallmark of Joel’s rhetorical style.) Like any good jeremiad, this one eventually transits from despair to hope, noting that the “yearning in the human soul to smell a flower, pet a pig and enjoy food with a face is stronger now than anytime in history,” before moving into a matter-of-fact discussion of this year’s prices and the paramount importance of sending in your order blanks and showing up to collect your chickens on time.
I met several of Polyface’s parishioners on a Thursday in June as they came to collect the fresh chickens they’d reserved. It was a remarkably diverse group of people: a schoolteacher, several retirees, a young mom with her towheaded twins, a mechanic, an opera singer, a furniture maker, a woman who worked in a metal fabrication plant in Staunton. They were paying a premium over supermarket prices for Polyface food, and in many cases driving more than an hour over a daunting (though gorgeous) tangle of county roads to come get it. But no one would ever mistake these people for the well-heeled, urban foodies generally thought to comprise the market for organic or artisanal food. There was plenty of polyester in this crowd and a lot more Chevrolets than Volvos in the parking lot.
So what exactly had they come all the way out here to the farm to buy? Here are some of the comments I collected:
“This is chicken as I remember it from my childhood. It actually tastes like chicken.”
“I just don’t trust the food in the supermarket anymore.”
“These eggs just jump up and slap you in the face!”
“You’re not going to find fresher chickens anywhere.”
“All this meat comes from happy animals—I know because I’ve seen them. And the pork tenderloin is to die for!”
“I drive 150 miles one way to get clean meat for my family.”
“It’s very simple: I trust the Salatins more than I trust Wal-Mart. And I like the idea of keeping my money right here in town.”
I was hearing, in other words, the same stew of food fears and food pleasures (and food memories) that has driven the growth of the organic food industry over the past 20 years—that, and the satisfaction many Polyface customers clearly take in spending a little time on a farm, porch-chatting with the Salatins, and taking a beautiful drive in the country to get here. For some people, reconnecting with the source of their food is a powerful idea. For the farmer, these on-farm sales allow him to recapture the 92 cents of a consumer’s food dollar that now typically winds up in the pockets of processors, middlemen, and retailers.
I asked Joel how he answers the charge that because food like his is more expensive, it is inherently elitist. “I don’t accept the premise,” he replied. “First off, those weren’t any ‘elitists’ you met on the farm this morning. We sell to all kinds of people. Second, whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that, with our food, all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water—of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.”
As it is, artisanal producers like Joel compete on quality, which, oddly enough, is still a somewhat novel idea when it comes to food. “When someone drives up to the farm in a BMW and asks me why our eggs cost more, well, first I try not to get mad,” said Joel. “Frankly, any city person who doesn’t think I deserve a white-collar salary as a farmer doesn’t deserve my special food. Let them eat E. coli. But I don’t say that. Instead I take him outside and point at his car. ‘Sir, you clearly understand quality and are willing to pay for it. Well, food is no different: You get what you pay for.’
“Why is it that we exempt food, of all things, from that rule? Industrial agriculture, because it depends on standardization, has bombarded us with the message that all pork is pork, all chicken is chicken, eggs eggs, even though we all know that can’t really be true. But it’s downright un-American to suggest that one egg might be nutritionally superior to another.” Joel recited the slogan of his local supermarket chain: “‘We pile it high and sell it cheap.’ What other business would ever sell its products that way?”
When you think about it, it is odd that something as important to our health and general well-being as food is so often sold strictly on the basis of price. Look at any supermarket ad in the newspaper and all you will find in it are quantities—pounds and dollars; qualities of any kind are nowhere to be found. The value of relationship marketing is that it allows many kinds of information besides price to travel up and down the food chain: stories as well as numbers, qualities as well as quantities, values rather than “value.” And as soon as that happens, people begin to make different kinds of buying decisions, motivated by criteria other than price. But instead of stories about how it was produced accompanying our food, we get bar codes—as illegible as the industrial food chain itself, and a fair symbol of its almost total opacity.
Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it’s a short way from not knowing who’s at the other end of your food chain to not caring—to the carelessness of both producers and consumers that characterizes our economy today. Of course, the global economy couldn’t very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds. This is why the American food industry and its international counterparts fight to keep their products from telling even the simplest stories—“dolphin safe,” “humanely slaughtered,” etc.—about how they were produced. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values—and not just “value”—will inform their purchasing decisions.
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The information in Omnivore's Delimina about Joel Salatin and Polyface farm, Corn and it's place/impact on our lives, Grass, the "food industry", etc. (and there is a vast about of information) is food for thought and action. Tracking what we eat from its orgin to consumption leads to concern about the contents of our food.
I'm reading Omnivore's Dilemma and I'm inspired to eat and buy food differently. Thanks!
I completely agree that the most sustainable practices for communities to adopt is to SHOP LOCAL and ONLY CONSUME ORGANIC. This practice alone solves major environmental and health issues.
Isn't it amazing to hear the voice of reason for a change? Doesn't this system offer a lot more guarantees for sustainability and, very importantly, the quality of the food we eat? If we find the right balance, we may even find ourselves back instead of running around like animals on steroids, trying to beat the deadline.
And I absolutely agree that the farmer is entitled to make as decent a living as the guy in the suit.
Outstanding performance, mister Saladin!
Really great article/book. I'm with these guys! Thanks for this.
Unfortuntly Joel and his ilk only make up a small portion of the world we live in. In the USA, the majority of your citizens kill thousands of each other for many reasons; but mostly over money.
Joel preaches a message of global and personal responsability for our food consumption and the industries feeding us. And like most preachers he believes in what he says; that is to say he accepts the things he knows to be "true". He forgets the world around him, the millions of straving and hungry developing nations who lack the technology and experience in growing food.
When we have enough food, enough to feed everyone in the world, so that no one is left out; (Or can't afford it) then I'll listen to this morons half-baked ideas about where I buy my groceries, and who I support.
Personally I do buy my produce directly from a farm, but not everyone has access to, or can afford that.
As far as environmentally, do you factor in the extra gas and pollution used to drive these idiots out to see you? Is your local pick-up method really better for the earth overall? I don't see any of these questions being asked. (Way to write in-depth Michael)
Hunger
It is not that there is not enough food in the world to feed everyone. Quite the contrary, research has shown that plenty of food is being produced to feed the world the problem is that people either can't grow food because of land prices or other factors, or they can't afford to buy it. It is like taxes in New York, and elsewhere for that matter, 1% of the population is paying 50% taxes likewise a small minority of the worlds population is consuming the majority of food.
Organic farming aside the statistics are interesting. Read the book "The Fatal Harvest Reader", at least section 1. It is eyeopening. I have linked it at the bottom but I found it at my library and quite by accident I might add.
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-Reader-Andrew-Kimbrell/dp/155963944X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236825759&sr=1-1
Extremely well written and circumspect article. Thanks for the information, the glimpse into interesting personalities, and the well portioned food for thought.
I'd greatly appreciate suggestions for finding local farms near NYC trying this approach.
Sorry -- my email address is bob@matsuoka.com
this is a great article - i totally agree - except nothing grows where i live (northern Canada) - i sometimes wonder if human life is even meant to live here...
I would love to see America get back to its roots. I think we're slowly losing our souls to homogenized life. I don't want change to be FORCED on society though. Changes have to start from the ground (the consumer) up. Corporations have a right to make money and be efficient, but consumers have the right to "opt out." If I had a farm like this nearby I would also purchase at least some of my food there. The American farmer is disappearing and it is a tragedy. This makes me hope that in my lifetime things could change. Great article.
Sounds neat - I at times yearn to do this sort of thing on my small plot in Michigan...maybe one day. I've had chickens, strictly for eggs (I tend to become too attached to eat them) and I must say - store bought eggs are tasteless in comparison. Keep up the good work! notdanhaggerty-at-yahoo.com
I wish Michael P. would have talked more about his slaughtering process for the animals Polyface raises. Do they do it onsite? or do they farm out the work to a local butcher? (pardon the pun)
excellently coined. "eat your view" we have lived your iowa home grown description except in missouri for a few years now. when people ask why we work so hard and is it really worth it? i have come up with a few clunky versions of your reasons in this article. you have given me convincingly worded retort fodder for those sitting tysons pews.
thank you.
eating my view,
karl
http://omelays.blogspot.com
It's a pleasure to read about a farm like I grew with. My mother knew who produced our milk and butter. The real reason we have all the regulations of food products is that big companies that sell products long distances need them or they would be out of business by other unscrupulous big producers.
Shaze, Joel Salatin's model is the one that takes into account the world around him. "Teach a man to fish..", is an old proverb. Google it! If you want to feed the world, start first by living locally and sustainably. The problem isn't the rest of the world, it's American's level of consumption. I have been subscribing to a local organic farm for a while, and have eaten zero fast food, have been using my kitchen, learning new dishes that are seasonal. The change in my health and well being is remarkable. Americans live like idiots. The local agricultural model is empowering to communities and individuals across the board. Want your country back? Your health? Your family? Civil respect and responsibility? This is the way...
We would save a lot of energy and CO2 emissions if he trucked the food to a market or farmer's market in town, rather than having each customer drive individually to his farm.
The gas they use to get to his farm is not organic and is not produced locally.
Trucking food.
He does exactly that. Every major city near him has a "buyers club". (usually someones house) that he delivers a truck load of food too and you go pick up.
This information is NOT hard to discover.
Remember:
1) Engage brain
2) Engage google
3) Engage mouth.
Getting those steps out of order will make you look silly.
I've been struggling with this for over ten years. Our food buying habits, however, are deeply programmed and difficult to break free of. The bottom line in food, like all other products, is the involvement of corporations. Regardless of the product, if the company is at the mercy of a board of directors, investors and THE BOTTOM LINE. then the mission will ultimately be compromised. So when Kellogs begins marketing organic mini wheats is this a good thing or a bad thing? When Ford introduced the Escape with the cell to save gas, or GM with the ethanol option, is this really helping? I think not. I think it makes us feel a little better but the system remains intact. Corporate, packaged processed food is a blight on our culture, yet it rules. Look at every school lunchroom in America, its all about Coke Pepsi and Cheetoes. The idea of Polyface Farm is incredible, every community should have multiple farms like this available to them. Lsts dump the market and go back to the farm. The most difficult adjustment will be to eating only what is in season, rather than having tomatoes all year long. Remove corporate America from your shopping list. (This is very difficult, I have not been able to, but I keep trying!). We will also find that many areas of our nations are clearly not suitable for the populations they have. Without food and water truck and piped they would die.
Joel Salatin is THE MAN. Very cool stuff he's doing. His books are very informative as well. But, check out this irony: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?dest=9999999997&product_id=574...
In Central Florida, on 1.2-ac just outside the city limits, we are raising our own chickens for eggs and meat. A small herd of miniture dairy goats is imminent. A swimming pool filled with Tilapia is a few years out.
Our grape vines, citrus, and other fruit tress and productive. Our garden is being prepared.
Why is this illegal a block away within the city limits? Why can't my urban family keep their own chickens or goats? (Fish and fruit are allowed, as are barking dogs and screeching parrots.)
Let's go back to the 40's with Victory Gardens as a weapon against our destruction. Decentralize, deurbanize: reconnect and re-create. What has worked for thousands of years can work for thousands more!
Peace.
I would like to address Shaze's comments head on. I have setup my farm to follow similar paths as they have. There are MANY reasons why buying on farm is necessary, none the least is that if they (we) ship our food into towns then we are outside in the FDA regulated world. As long as we remain on farm then we dont have to deal with the increased expense of having an inspector come out and tell us how to care for the meat that we sell.
In addition the driving out to the farm is far less damaging than how far the produce travels when it goes to the store. I dont think his farm could support enough folks coming out to buy that would equate to purchasing my fruit from Brazil.
I could keep going, since there are many many many reasons... however I feel that Joel said it best in his books. If you would like to learn more then read his articles.
Asking questions like those are important, it keeps everyone in check. I had to stand up and refuse to support the csa program in my town due to the import of organic chicken feed that we had to feed our chickens in order to qualify for the program being from Cali. I am in Az. It made no sense to do such a thing and was more damaging than alternative solutions.
I encourage you to read his books, check them out from a library. Good reading. Good luck Shaze!
Shaze,
I think you should read some more about Joel Salatin's farming practices because you'll soon see that his farm is, in fact, very low tech. It is very simple compared to the high-tech and mechanized system that has become the industrialized farm in the US. This article just touches on what Salatin is doing. Save your criticisms until you're more informed.
Thanks!
Shaze, growing food is not hard. Humans have grown food for millenia. The modern food production system is very young. It is also very complicated because it goes "against the flow": There has to be massive growing of crops. The seeding and reaping must be done by an efficient, mechanized process which mandates that only one type of crop grows on a given strech of land which results in monocultures - natural disasters, because Earth's ecosystems do not function when species are separate; they function best when species are mixed (grow/live in the same space).
The only way you can grow more plant species in one field is that you seed and pick them by hand [audience gasps]. But the polyculture system is easy to maintain - it virtually maintains itself. You just have to know which species mix well together on which type of soil, climate, etc.
As for the food shortage problem, there isn't one. Tons of food are being wasted or stored in west-world countries while the rest of the world is starving. This planet can easily produce enough healthy food for all of us if agriculture would be done properly.
As for the pollution of the customer's cars - the same thing would happen if they bought their food in the supermarket. The only way to "step around that" is to ride a bike...
That brings to light a problem of transportation and distance. Clearly, some of Polyface's customers live too far from the farm to travel by bike. A solution is that customers organize in groups formed by customer to customer distances - a group would only have those customers who all live close by to each other. Each group could use only one internal-combustion powered vehicle to get the food to the group. The point is, that problem is not caused by local farming. Of course, if there would be considerably more smaller local farms, that problem would become smaller too - if every town (and every large city borough) had a local farm, there would be no transport problem and everyone would indeed be able to pick up their food by bike (with a cart attached).
Fritz Haeg of Edible Estates is doing wonderful work to inspire suburbanites with sunny front yards to get rid of the lawn and plant beautiful intemsive raised bed vegetable gardenss.
Shaze,
I agree that these sorts of questions need to be asked, although I don't think they require so much name-calling.
It is VERY true that not everyone has access to this type of food, but I think that THAT IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM. I know that if there was a farm like this in my area, I would be there in a heartbeat. But there is nothing around me but subdivisions and shiny new shopping centers (and more and more of those every year), and I often have little choice but to accept the kind of low-quality food I can find here. That is exactly the kind of problem Salatin is opposing. This is why I think it is so important that this movement spreads and takes hold in more areas, so that more of us who are unwillingly "enslaved" to industrial food systems will have that opportunity to opt out.
I also know that there are millions of people starving in the world...but as someone else pointed out, this is not due to a shortage of food. Worldwide, we currently produce enough food to provide every human on earth with an adequate diet. The problem is not one of supply, but of distribution.
Also, many of these starving people have been converted to industrial farming systems, often controlled by large international corporations, in which the food is grown and then shipped to richer countries, rather than being consumed by the local population. In addition, this industrial system results in eroding environmental quality (including, literally, soil erosion, which causes fertile ground to become barren and desert-like; this can be an major factor in causing famines) and the loss of traditional agricultural knowledge, without which the people are left dependent on the industrial model. This is why the development of alternatives, such as Salatin's, is so important. It stresses local knowledge and careful management over uniform industrial standards and high-tech inputs. Most third world people do not have access to (or cannot afford) the latter two, but the first two are things that they already have or can easily be taught. I am of the opinion that Salatin's model, and others like it, are the best tools we have in fighting world hunger.
As to the issue of driving to get local food...well, people already have to drive to get NON-local food at a supermarket. In suburban areas, where residential and shopping areas are placed far apart, you may have to drive 4 or 5 miles to get to a grocery store anyway, to buy food that has already been transported many miles using fossil fuels. If there were local farms to go to instead of supermarkets, I think the amount of fuel burned by driving customers would be the same, but there would be no fuel burned to transport the food.
In conclusion...I think we absolutely need to look at things critically and consider all the possible consequences of such a system, because of course there will be problems with any system you can come up with, and it is only smart for us to take into account what those problems might be and how to find solutions to them. But I think Salatin's ideas have a LOT of merit and that we should all work to develop and support more local food systems.
Bring on the natural revolution. Ahmen.
How is requiring one far-away customer to drive long distance to obtain a chicken more sustainable than shipping multiple chickens to multiple customers? Both systems use fossil fuels. Although I agree with Salatin's ideas about obtaining food locally and closely, I don't think he truly understands the geographic isolation of farmers in other areas, particularly in the Midwest and West. Living in Virginia, he might have the luxury of many potential customers within 40 miles, but not all farmers and ranchers share the same situation. I know of many ranchers, farmers and dairy producers who would not be able to function without long-distance marketing. I guess to me, the most important thing is that food be produced sustainably first and foremost, and that gradually we can implement local economies that can be self-sufficient.
Hi,
My name is Lauren and I work with the BBC World Service on the programme, World Have Your Say. Today we are doing a show on food, asking the question, should we create healthy food even though it is usually more expensive or create cheap, usually unhealthy food to feed hungry people all over the world. If you have an opinion on the matter, we would love to hear from you. Please email me at lin.liu@bbc.co.uk with your number. The show will be on at 6 pm London time.
Thanks,
Lauren
I can't decide if you're a moron or just bitter about something. 1) What does a higher murder rate have to do with food locally grown from sustainable agricultural practices? 2) Does it not make sense to pay more attention to where your food comes from than your electronics/carpet/car etc etc? 3) Starving people in undeveloped countries need exactly this kind of information to put into practice. In the long run it will be far cheaper. Also, if they can heal their land and grow food locally to feed their peoples the problem would be what? In your opinion the only answer is to mass produce food thousands of miles away and ship it because it's "cheaper"? Are you really shortsighted enough to believe this? How can that possibly be sustainable? You would just be perpetuating these people's inability to provide for themselves. 4) It is easy to see that driving a few miles once or twice a week to buy groceries will always use less fossil fuels than to have your groceries trucked hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles as most traditional supermarket groceries are. In addition, Joel Salatin's farm doesn't pollute or use chemicals, antibiotics or hormones. Rather than tractors and machinery, the animals on Joel's farm do all the work. If only you could understand.
From Omnivores Dilemma (Joel’s words):
whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that, with our food, all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water—of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.”
At least you had one thing right when you suggested the world needs more Joel Salatin’s.
Shaze:
I can't decide if you're a moron or just bitter about something. 1) What does a higher murder rate have to do with food locally grown from sustainable agricultural practices? 2) Does it not make sense to pay more attention to where your food comes from than your electronics/carpet/car etc etc? 3) Starving people in undeveloped countries need exactly this kind of information to put into practice. In the long run it will be far cheaper. Also, if they can heal their land and grow food locally to feed their peoples the problem would be what? In your opinion the only answer is to mass produce food thousands of miles away and ship it because it's "cheaper"? Are you really shortsighted enough to believe this? How can that possibly be sustainable? You would just be perpetuating these people's inability to provide for themselves. 4) It is easy to see that driving 30-40 miles once or twice a week to buy groceries will always use less fossil fuels than to have your groceries trucked hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles as most traditional supermarket groceries are. In addition Joel Salatin's farm doesn't pollute or use chemicals, antibiotics or hormones. Rather than tractors and machinery, the animals on Joel's farm do all the work. If only you could understand.
From Omnivores Dilemma (Joel’s words):
whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that, with our food, all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water—of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.”
At least you had one thing right when you suggested the world needs more Joel Salatin’s.
Here in Scotland we have known about this for a long time, Organic farms are becoming more and more popular as are farmers markets where farmers bring their produce into town and sell on stalls on certain days. Needless to say this development has the supermarkets in a spin,not happy about it at all!
The advantages for the farmer are obvious, they are able to build a close relationship with their customers and respond directly to their needs. The food they sell, in the case of meat,is grown slowly and so tastes better. There are no chemicals/hormones in the production, hormones are suspected to be the cause of early puberty in girls, this is becoming a major issue here some girls displaying signs at age 8!
Obviously food has to be transported to cities but if we can reduce this as much as possible this can only be good
finally if l can sound old fashioned, l can remember the days when all food was produced this way,when my Granny had preserved food in her kitchen, her home made soup tasted like nothing else, and you only are fruit when it was ripe, that too tasted better! None of that did me any harm nor did l feel that l was missing out.
I would love to find out if there is a way to invest starter money in one of the interns at these farms. I am too far and entrenched (Japan, in education) to commit my life to this stuff, but if Mr. Salatin and crew had a way to invest or donate in sustainable farms, similar to polyface I would gladly compensate my carbon imprint by investing in any polyface like farm that restores land and follows within reason a similar model as long as their was some system of credibility. I imagine a sort of scholarship program. If Mr. Salatin or a similarly trustworthy individual had a "Diploma" to give and someone gathered donors to match this diploma, a newly grown farmer could have a shot at putting a proposal on a website for the land they want to restore, and donors could sign on to invest. I think it would would only by libertarian to then shut your eyes and let the farm do what it does, succeed or fail. I am far from libertarian, but why mess with what works? If 10 such interns then started farms, and innovated to different site conditions, at least some would succeed, some would possibly be tempted to go industrial, so too far to the left, but whatever. The key is more land in the hands of people who respect it.
Does anyone know of an opportunity to do this?
I am willing to bet that Mr. Salatin could wield a significant fund raising sword just by pointing the droves of Michael Pollen fans at worthy causes with his "name value."
The Barack Obama story, minus any politics, even better!
If you share my opinion, let's think about it together.
thomasgroendal at hotmail.com
I think what you wrote was pretty great. I am writing a speach for my FFA speaking contest and its over the differences in feedlot food and nature only. This and the poly face farm web site has helped steer me in the right direction!
They process their own chickens on site. Joel says it's illegal for them to process and sell their own beef and pork so they have to have that done at a USDA approved facility. He covers all this in "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal"
i am an student at Laguardia CC of New York City. the first chapter of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" is being used as a reading material for students to take a writing test called CPE, that is when i get interested on buying the book which i am reading. it is very useful material. so far i worry where to buy healthy food. when i go to the supermarket, i started looking at the labels and don't buy anything. i will finish reading next week and i'll post my impression. thank, javi
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had an accident.Unfortunately,he lost his life.
Since then I have made several enquiries to your
Embassy to locate any of my clients extended
relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After
these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to
trace his relatives over the Internet to locate any
member of his family but of no avail hence I contacted
you.
I contacted you to assist in repaitrating the money
and property left behind by my client before they get
confiscated or declared lodged,unserviceable by the
bank where this huge deposits were deposited, the
Bank where the deceased had an account valued at
about$ 6.5 million dollars.
Conseqently,The bank issued me a notice to provide the
next of kin or have the account confiscated within the
next 21 official working days. since i have been
unsuccesfull in locating the the relatives for over
2years now I seek your consent to present you as the
next of kin of the deceased since you are from the
same country so that the proceeds of this account
valued at $6.5 million dollars can be paid to you and
then you and me can share the money 60% to me and 35%
to you,while 5% should be for expenses or tax as your
government may require.
I have all legal documents, to back up any claim we
may make. All I require is your honest co-operation to
enable us see this transaction through.
Regards,
Barrister Stella Ibrus
The pigs and cows under USDA regulations must be processed in an inspected meat-processing plant, which could then sell the processed carcasses to local butchers and whatnot.
A federal exemption allows farmers to slaughter and process (re: gut) their own chickens if the birds number under a few thousand.
FROM: Ketele Kalumba
E-mail: KeteleKalumba_03@yahoo.fr
ATTN: MANAGINING DIRECTOR/CEO.
Dear Sir/Madam,
You may be surprised to receive this letter from me since you don't know me I am Mr. Ketele Kalumba, the son of Dr. Dennis Kalumba who was recently murdered in the dispute in Zimbabwe, I got your contact through Network on line in my search for a reliable and reputable person to handle a top confidential transaction which involve a transfer of fund to a foreign account and I decided to write you, my late father was among the Zimbabwean Rich Farmers who was murdered in cold Blood by the agents of the ruling government of President Robert Mugabe for his alleged support and sympathy for the Zimbabwean opposition party controlled by the white Minorities.
Before his death he had taken me to Johannesburg-South Africa to deposit the sum of UD$21. Million (Twenty One Million United State Dollars) with a Security and Finance Company. This money was embarked from the purchase of New Machinery and Chemical for the farm and the establishment of new farm in Lesotho and Swaziland . This land problem arose when President Robert Mugabe introduce a new land act that wholly affected the Rich white farmers and some few black vehemently condemned the "Modus Oparandi" adopted by the government. This resulted in rampant killing and mob action by the war veterans and some political thugs precisely, so many people far has been killed. Head of governments from the west, especially Britain and United State of America have voiced their condemnation of Mugabe's plan. Subsequently, South Africa Development community (S.A.D.C.) has continuously supported Mugabe's new land act, it is against this background that my family and I are currently staying in South Africa have decided to transfer my father's money into foreign account. But the sad news of all is that my mum couldn't survive the recent incident that happen to her, I' m in a state of confusion. Please go read my mum's Mrs. Grace Kalumba and others predicament on this website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6463653.stm
As the eldest son of my father, I am saddled with the responsibility of seeking a genuine foreign account where this money could be transferred without the knowledge of my government who are freezing our family wealth and South Africa's government seems to be playing along with them. I am faced with the dilemma of investing this money in South Africa for fear of encountering the same experience in future since both countries have almost the same political history. More so, the South African Foreign Exchange Policy does not allow such investment hence we seek for an: ASYLUM" As a business person whom I entrusted my future and that of my family into his hands, I must let you know that this transaction is 100% risk free and the nature of your business does not necessarily matter.
For your assistance,I am offering you 20% of the total sum 75% for my Family and me while 5% will be mapped out part for any expenses we may incure during the course of this transaction. We wish to invest our part of the money on commercial property based on your advice. Please confirm your interest via the above contact numbers or forward your private telephone number so that I can call you for mutual understanding.
Sincerely yours,
Mr. Ketele Kalumba.
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To the person that said "the millions of straving and hungry developing nations who lack the technology and experience in growing food." There has to be something else at work here other than what you stated. People don't inhabit an area if there hasn't been a way to grow or gather food in that area. Given the freedom to do so people can learn to provide for themselves everywhere. It's not our job to provide them with subsidized corn and wheat because their government is limiting their freedoms in a way that limits how they can support themselves and grow/gather food for themselves. Giving people cheap food doesn't solve the root problem.
What this man is doing is the beginning of a return to the agri-america. Ending the 3000 mile sandwich is the hopefull goal. I buy as much local food as possible. As often as I can. Simply put, one persons way of fighting the influx of corrupt corporate food producers who care not what is put into the food as long as the bottom line is met. The Macdonalds theory of food distribution...fill them up with fats and sugars,,, who cares about health as long as we can get HS students to work cheap, and sell a lot of junk. Put a clown face on it, only resembles what PT Barnum said years ago. "There is a sucker born every minuite." The basis of a valueless country. Socially corrupt and nutritionally deprived. May God have mercy on your clogged arterys.
Create quality food and "teach and man to fish".
Above in response to Lauren's post, "Hi, My name is Lauren and I work with the BBC World Service on the programme, World Have Your Say. Today we are doing a show on food, asking the question, should we create healthy food even though it is usually more expensive or create cheap, usually unhealthy food to feed hungry people all over the world. If you have an opinion on the matter, we would love to hear from you. Please email me at lin.liu@bbc.co.uk with your number. The show will be on at 6 pm London time. Thanks, Lauren"
Aw, Shaze; you poor, sad little critter. Gitcherself a little more fiber in the diet and take a nap. Maybe we won't be such a cranky one tomorrow.
