Before you meet Joel Salatin, you get the feeling he would die for what he believes in, happily. You also get the feeling he gets more out of his phenomenally successful grass-based farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley than the perennially positive cash flow.
But after you meet Joel Salatin, and hear him speak, you get the feeling that his greatest joy and purpose in life may be talking about it.
Salatin will give a lecture from 5:30-7:30 p.m. July 23 at the Kirkland Performance Center, as part of the Kirkland Health Fair. The fair will feature 80 exhibitors, kid’s activities and a variety of interactive events at Parkplace Center.
Never has the stereotype of the farmer as an inarticulate, uneducated, receding-into-the-landscape, man-of-few-words been so forcefully composted as in Salatin.
And he has the locution to prove it.
A self-described “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic-farmer ” who doesn’t hesitate to point out that our “Greco-Roman western linear reductionist systematized fragmented disconnected parts oriented individualized culture” might not provide the most complete philosophical basis for producing healthy food, an encounter with Salatin usually results in more than one stereotype ending up on the manure pile.
Or in Salatin’s case, “carbonacious diaper”: a combination of dead leaves, wood chips, and any other carbon-based material normally tossed aside by conventional farmers that he uses to catch and hold the winter waste of his cattle (at a time when the soil and grass are dormant, to be used come spring), preventing it from seeping into the ground or vaporizing away.
Yes, everything has a purpose on Salatin’s farm. And it all works in harmony to produce not only the highest quality food, but also the happiest and healthiest microbes, soil-based organisms, nemotodes, chickens, cows, pigs, rabbits, turkeys and people as possible, a phenomenon Salatin refers to in the title of his latest book, “The Sheer Ecstasy Of Being a Lunatic Farmer.”
His series of how-to books (with such audacious titles as “Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front” and “Pastured Poultry Profits: Net $25,000 in Six Months on 20 Acres”) have helped hundreds of families and small farmers quickly develop profitable pasture (mulit-speciated grass) based animal raising operations.
Along with his grandfather and father, he has used these methods to produce dramatically more per acre than his neighbors while simultaneously healing a landscape left barren by years of annual monocrop farming.
But his message is compelling for more than just DIYers, and has much broader implications: one does not need to sacrifice the health of the environment for the health of the economy, or sacrifice either for improved human health.
In fact, they all depend on each other, similar to the elements of Salatin’s farm.It is a message that lead him to be extensively profiled by food writer Micahel Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as well as become an inspiration for and large part of several documentaries, including the Oscar nominated “Food, Inc.”, and Washington-based filmmaker Ana Joanes’ “Fresh”.
Jo Robinson, author of “Pasture Perfect: The Far-Reaching Benefits of Choosing Meat, Eggs and Dairy Products From Grass-Fed Animals” says of Salatin: “He’s not going back to the old model. There’s nothing in county extension or old-fashioned ag science that really informs him. He is just looking totally afresh at how to maximize production in an integrated system on a holistic farm. He’s just totally innovative.”
The reaction of recent lecture goer Alexa Tannenbaum confirms Salatin’s infectious message: “It blew my mind to hear someone speak who has the hands-on experience of this type of food production. I had no idea about the details, the viability… the all around benefit. Joel has an incredible passion for what he does, and that really comes through. I think the audience left feeling pretty inspired.”
A frequent speaker on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. advocating for the local food movement and small farmer’s rights, Salatin spends 100 days a year travelling and giving lectures around the world. His July 23 visit will be his first to Kirkland and the Eastside.
More information
Tickets to Joel Salatin’s lecture are available at www.joelsalatininkirkland.eventbrite.com For more information about the Kirkland Health Fair, visit www.kirklandhealthfair.org
Jered Morgan is the event organizer of the Kirkland Health Fair.
