Joel Salatin

Everybody who cares about sustainable food supplies needs to know who Joel Salatin is. He is the owner of Polyface Farm ("farm of many faces") in Swoope, Virginia. He is an author, a brillianly creative farmer, a political rebel, and a committed Christian. He has revolutionized animal farming for small-scale sustainable farmers by his creative approaches to pasture rotation. He makes a very healthy living selling beef, poultry, pork, and rabbits off his farm. He will not ship meat anywhere, selling only to those in his surrounding counties. He has written numerous books, sharing his ideas for others to use. And ACRES USA uses Polyface Farm annually as a hands-on field-day site so Joel can lecture on and demonstrate his methods. (They charge $400-$500 an hour for guided tours of the farm with Joel or his son, Daniel, leading the tour. Self-guided, walkabout tours are free -- and hundreds of people pass through the farm every week.) Author Michael Pollan has written extensively about Joel Salatin.



As a Christian, I wish I could talk with Joel sometime about his dual commitments to Scripture and the consumption of animals. (Though nobody treats animals more gently and humanely than he does.) I would also like to ask him if he recognizes any connection between his lifelong consumption of animal flesh and his prostate cancer. There is such a clear link in research literature between those two that it amazes me how a smart guy like Joel Salatin doesn't see the (alleged) connection. I hope he lives long and strong -- and wish he would bring the same brilliance to plant production that he applies to animal farming. (He gardens, but it's primarily for his own family's consumption and a minimal amount of on-farm sales to others. His main "cash crop" is animals.)