Those who have read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma are well aware of Joel Salatin, a third generation sustainable farmer in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, and his Polyface Farm. Reading about the farm inspired me to write about education in a different way in this diary back on May 10. It also led me to answer an important question from my wife, Leaves on the Current - where did I want to go for my birthday and what did I want to do? My response, which surprised her, was to visit the Farm and eat dinner at one of the restaurants that purchases its products.
And as my wife discovered with some surfing related material, the newspaper in Staunton, about 8 miles away from the farm, ran a piece about Salatin, his farming, and his appearance in two new films, that same day.
Please keep reading.
Saturday was my birthday. We stayed in Charlottesville Friday and Saturday night, eating dinner at Keswick Hall Near Charlottesville on Saturday, in Fossett's Restaurant, named for the women who served as Jefferson 's Chef beginning in 1809 after he retired to Monticello. I will simply say the three kinds of pork in my entree tasted like pork, was flavorful, unlike the bland meat obtainable in my supermarkets.
It takes about an hour to drive from the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, where we stayed at the Omni Hotel. One heads south from the street in front for several miles, gets on I-64 heading West through the Blue Ridge, heads briefly South on I-81 and then gets off, traveling on ever-more narrow and countrified roads until after several miles of a winding and at times gravel roadbed one makes a right-turn, goes across a narrow slatted wooden "bridge" and has arrived. You curve to the left then back to the right to park behind the main house, and behind the store, where you can buy produce to take home. After our wandering for several hours - you can do that, and I will describe it anon - we called back to the Omni and were assured they would be happy to store things in the freezer and refrigerator until we headed home on Sunday, and thus bought a dozen eggs, some beef, some sausage and a cut up broiler. Pollan raves about the quality of their product, and most of the quality restaurants in Charlottesville and other nearby communities buy from Polyface. We look forward to enjoying the fruits - or should I say meats - of our visit over the next few weeks on occasions when we can have a leisurely meal.
The website offers detailed descriptions of the poultry, rabbits and beef raised at Polyface. And in wandering around the farm, most of which is still in woodlands, one can see how the animals are raised and treated. We did not get that close to the cattle, who were wandering freely in a pasture abutting a wooded area. Across the narrow road were a batch of small enclosures in which chicks were able to peck through the the aftermath of previous cattle grazing. And a previous stay by the Eggmobile, which after we wandered a bit we encountered, in a small area not unlike where the cattle we saw were ensconced.
It is a large box on wheels which can be closed up, but which has a ramp down which the hens, who stay there for two years before being transitioned into preparation to become broilers, can freely wander. As we walked nearby, the hens came over to us, and began to follow us down to the road! No being crammed into a laying house - these were truly free-range chickens.
We saw turkeys and rabbits as well. We would not personally eat the latter, as my wife's family had had one as a pet - one I too remember. The rabbits have to be contained. Turkeys and the broilers and the rabbits are at times in sheds, but with far more space than one would see on the large poultry farms on the Eastern Shore, and they do not spend their entire lives in one building. The website notes of their animals and the food they eat
At Polyface, we want every animal to eat as much salad (green material) as its full genetic potential will allow.
Here I note a point Pollan emphasizes - cattle are ruminants, with a digestive track optimized for grazing, not for being fed corn. And by eating a more natural diet and having some mobility the animals at Polyface are not as subject to disease and thus do not need the heavy treatment of antibiotics, which since we are (apparently) at the top of the food chain gets passed on to us.
The buildings and sheds and eggmobile and portable fencing are not particular impressive to look at, but they work. Joel Salatin took over the farm from his parents, who bought the 550 acres in 1961, more than two decades ago. In the article in The News Leader from Staunton, entitled Sustainable farmer featured in 2 new films, Salatin points out that his grandfather was one of the original subscribers 90 years ago to Rodale's Organic Farming and Gardening magazine. he is a graduate of fundamentalist Bob Jones University, where he majored in English, a course of studies which gave him skills he uses in writing (several books) and speaking (he lectures widely on college campuses) to advocate for the kind of farming he does.
A couple of comments about Joel Salatin. He is personable and outgoing. We had a very brief conversation with him. We did not introduce ourselves, but I was pretty sure the gentleman saying welcome to us as we began to wander up the road towards the cows and chickens was Salatin, so I made a remark about the place being one of grass farming and he responded that it was much more, but that was where it started. Later that day as my wife and I were wandering around the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville we encountered the man we are supporting for Governor of Virginia, State Senator Creigh Deeds, whose district includes both C'ville and Swoope, where Polyface is located. When we mentioned we had been to the farm, Creigh told us that Joel was a real character, a Libertarian who had no use for either Democrats or Republicans, but that he (Creigh) had carried a lot of water for Joel and similar farmers in some of their battles with various government agencies and Salatin was appreciative, irrespective of the fact that Creigh is a Democrat.
The newspaper article will give a real sense of the man and the place. After noting that Salatin will appear in two forthcoming documentaries, "Food, Inc." and "Fresh", we hear from Salatin, whose message about how we raise our food is now becoming more palatable (the choice of word is deliberate) to a wider audience, with him even being invited to appear with Martha Stewart, an engagement he had to turn down because of a prior speaking engagement. He remarks
"It’s been amazing to watch the culture rise up to meet us," he said. "We’ve gone from sucking hind tit, to now being avant garde."
The first of the two films is produced by the company which did Gore's film. The article notes that
The film explores the practices of the few corporations that control a majority of the American food industry, aided by the U.S Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration. The film, the producers say, provides plenty of evidence of profit being placed before consumer health and safety. It features co-producer Schlosser and Pollan as well as Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield.
The second film explores the lives of those who, like Joel Salatin, try to live a solution to the problems explored in the first film. The filmmaker notes:
"Joel in my movie kind of exemplifies sustainability," she said. "I think people use the word sustainable, but don’t really know what it means. He just makes it so common sensical. There are other farmers who are practicing it, but Joel has this passion and energy. Joel also is very spiritual. I think he articulates the yearning in people to find purpose and meaning in our actions."
I am going to urge you to read more about Joel Salatin and Polyface, both in the news article and - if you have not already done so - in Pollan's book. Pollan came to the farm because Salatin rejected a request:
In "Omnivore’s Dilemma," Pollan devotes an entire section to describing how Salatin developed and operates environmentally sound meat production at his family’s Polyface Farm. In fact, Pollan writes that he really grew curious about Salatin when the farmer refused to send him meat products to sample for a New York Times story he was working on.
"I told him he had small farmers within a few hours drive where he lived," Salatin said. "He was a little taken aback by that."
That points at a key part of Joel's philosophy, the idea of refocusing on the local community. As the article concludes
But for all the national attention he’s getting, Salatin wants to remain focused on local change — and he wants every other community in the country to do the same.
"I want community in all its dimensions," said Salatin, "I want to bring the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker back to the village."
Not surprisingly, Salatin is still just fine with going against the grain — as long as he’s in harmony with the environment.
We are luckier than Michael Pollan. We are in a community where it is possible to get Polyface products delivered through what are called Metropolitan Buying Clubs, and although we do not eat a huge amount of meat and poultry, we are later this week going to explore our own participation.
Of greater importance, we came away from our visit and our dinner that night convinced that we seriously want to rethink how we eat, not only for our own health, but that of the land and of sustaining the sustainable farmers like Joel Salatin.
We would both encourage anyone reading this to do a similar exploration.
Salatin is certainly not alone. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse has in her cooking and her advocacy tried to bring people back to healthier eating and sustainable local agriculture, even working with schools - and much of our unhealthiness is unfortunately reinforced by the current structure of our school lunch program.
This was a birthday trip, extended by my wife finding the article late last night. We came back not only with food, but also with books and a determination to explore changing our own eating patterns.
That is why I took the time for this diary this morning.
I hope it makes you appropriately hungry.
Peace.