Joel Salatin has left the state. Fortunately for this Shenadoah Valley, Va., farmer author he slipped in and out of North Dakota between an ice storm and our first substantial snow. Not that he hasn’t ever experienced snow, but we didn’t want any delayed flights or excuses for people not to attend this fabulous weekend.
Salatin visited our state for the first time as the keynote speaker at two events hosted by FARRMS – The Art of Eating and Sustainable U. We gathered at Mezzaluna and the Holiday Inn in Fargo for these two well attended and enthusiastically received opportunities to hear Salatin speak. Of course, Sustainable U included many of our local sustainable ag gurus also in six special breakout sessions on Saturday.
If you have never heard of Salatin, a quick Google search will bring you site after site filled with videos, movies and books that feature the work of this humble farmer. He told me he never expected to become famous farming, but he did and here’s why…
Polyface Farm has become a model of sustainable farming with an emphasis on beef, pork and chickens. There are four generations of Salatins on the farmstead purchased by Joel’s dad. Rather than follow conventional advice for what to do on a farm, the family began building up the soils and forest areas rather than depleting them under a plow.
Using technology and logic, Polyface has become the place for clean meat as well as a place of learning for young people wanting to get into farming debt-free. The website puts it this way, “Polyface, Inc. is a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.”
The operation is transparent and the products are marketed directly to the public. People are invited to visit the farm to see where their food actually comes from. And, if you want to be entertained, or learn some new words like "pigaerator," then you must take the time to listen to Salatin speak.
Producers, farmers, gardeners, seed savers, greenhouse builders, farmer market managers, extension employees, NDSU faculty and others from many facets of life attended our conference. We can say it was an international event because one couple came from Canada to spend some quality time with Salatin. The weekend zipped by way to fast, but that was because there’s only three part-staff with FARRMS and so we relied on many of our friends and some great new volunteers to assist in the details of the weekend. We made a mark on Fargo and people will be talking about this event for weeks to come.
If you missed it, there are opportunities to see some video footage of Salatin as well as an interview by Cindy Gomez-Schempp by visiting the High Plains Reader Website (http://hpr1.com/) or you can find links on both the FARRMS and High Plains Reader Facebook pages.
Photos and the Art of Eating video can be found at www.farrms.org.
Also, you can put Salatin’s eighth book called “Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World” on your Chistmas list. It’s available from Amazon.com and other booksellers.
So for this week’s small bite of local information, listen to one of Salatin’s compelling talks promoting the economic, health and social benefits of “knowing where your food comes from.” Next week, I’ll go back into time and tell you a little more about FARRMS before we move on to seasonal eating. As always, send me your questions or comments at sbalcom@farrms.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment