Foodies and environmentally minded folks often
struggle to understand and articulate the fundamental
differences between the farming and food systems they
endorse and those promoted by Monsanto and friends. With
visceral stories and humor from Salatin's half-century
as a ''lunatic'' farmer, Salatin contrasts the
differences on many levels: practical, spiritual,
social, economic, ecological, political, and
nutritional.In today's conventional food-production
paradigm, any farm that is open-sourced,
compost-fertilized, pasture-based,
portably-infrastructured, solar-driven, multi-speciated,
heavily peopled, and soil-building must be operated by a
lunatic. Modern, normal, reasonable farmers erect ''No
Trespassing'' signs, deplete soil, worship annuals,
apply petroleum-based chemicals, produce only one
commodity, erect Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,
and discourage young people from farming.Anyone looking
for ammunition to defend a more localized, solar-driven,
diversified food system will find an entire arsenal in
these pages. With wit and humor honed during countless
hours working on the farm he loves, and then interacting
with conventional naysayers, Salatin brings the land to
life, farming to sacredness, and food to
ministry.Divided into four main sections, the first
deals with principles to nurture the earth, an idea
mainline farming has never really endorsed. The second
section describes food and fiber production, including
the notion that most farmers don't care about nutrient
density or taste because all they want is shipability
and volume. The third section, titled ''Respect for
Life,'' presents an apologetic for food sacredness and
farming as a healing ministry. Only lunatics would want
less machinery and pathogenicity. Oh, the ecstasy of not
using drugs or paying bankers. How sad. The final
section deals with promoting community, including the
notion that more farmers would be a good thing. |
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