Polyface Farm, in the Shenandoah Valley, was made famous in Michael Pollan’s best-selling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The man in charge of Polyface Farm is Joel Salatin, a self-described “lunatic farmer” and arguably the most outspoken opponent of the government’s management of the food supply system in America.
Everything Salatin does is counter to the “normal” industrial farm structure. Salatin describes Polyface Farm as a “grass-based livestock enterprise that direct-markets what we produce.” He sells to local restaurants, farmers’ markets, metropolitan buying clubs and directly from the farm. He believes in relationship marketing -- having the consumer and the farmer meeting and looking each other in the eye, guaranteeing integrity. The public is always welcome on the farm. In July Salatin hosts a Field Day where the public can bring the family and enjoy a farm tour.
Pollan’s book has given Salatin a larger pulpit to speak from, and he does. Salatin’s schedule during the course of a year includes two dozen appearances, on topics including “A Disconnected Food System is Out of Joint,” “Forgiveness Farming” and “Everything I Want to do is Illegal, Holy Cows and Hog Heaven.”
Salatin says that everyone has the freedom to “opt out” -- a phrase he uses to describe the freedom of choice people can exercise when buying locally from farmers instead of supporting the large, far away industrial farms.
Salatin may be labeled a character, a food preacher or a lunatic farmer, but he represents something much greater. As the mission statement of Polyface Farm says, he aims, “To develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.”