Why Small Farmers Are Disappearing | Joel Salatin

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This is the 30 minute TV version of Jan Jekielek’s interview with Joel Salatin. The longer-form version was released on Epoch TV on October 1.

🔴 Watch the extended version of this episode: http://bit.ly/42qXokO

Family farms in America are slowly disappearing, with a 2022 USDA census reporting that America lost 142,000 farms over just five years. The average farmer in America is now nearly 60 years old.

But it’s not government subsidies that farmers need to stay afloat, says Joel Salatin. What small farmers really need is the freedom to innovate and sell directly to local consumers—without facing a morass of red tape, regulations, and mandates.

Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia, is widely recognized as a leading pioneer of sustainable or regenerative farming practices that enrich the land, rather than depleting it.

Over the last half century, Salatin has seen his fair share of what he calls the “food police.” He discovered it was illegal to sell a couple dozen homemade pot pies at the farmers’ market without proving he had a certified $50,000 septic system; illegal to process his own meat without sending it to a licensed butcher; illegal for his 17-year-old apprentices to operate a cordless drill—even though they were legally allowed to drive a car; and illegal to build housing without a permit on his farm—an agricultural zone—for his highly popular farmer apprenticeship program.

The result? Small farmers have to fight for survival, factory farming wins, and America is less healthy, he says.

“In my lifetime I have watched this erosion of farmer access to retail dollars. Meanwhile, we’re seeing farmers go out of business hand over fist,” Salatin says.

What America really needs is a “Food Emancipation Proclamation,” he says.

Salatin is the author of 17 books, including “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

CHAPTER TITLES
00:00 No flies, no smell: Introducing Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm
01:08 Welcoming Joel Salatin; farm tour begins
01:38 Grass-fed cattle philosophy; feed regimen
02:24 Turkeys: diet, grit needs, intelligence
03:10 Pasture impact; mowing effect of turkeys
03:50 Pigs and compost: ethics and cycle of life
04:53 Factory farming and societal values
05:40 The Millennium feather net: mobile poultry innovation
06:09 In-house genetics and selecting healthy layers
07:24 Mobile house design and security goose
08:43 Everything you want to do is illegal: regulations and zoning
09:05 Forestry and on-farm manufacturing hurdles
09:40 Inspected kitchens: costs and constraints
10:00 Youth labor laws, daily regulatory pressures
10:30 Big government vs small business in agriculture
10:55 Regenerative farming family roots; marketing strategies
13:11 Aging farmers and the transfer of agricultural equity
13:24 Convenience foods, additives, and red tape
13:59 Regulatory burdens for small producers
14:35 Market-based vs regulatory solutions for local food
14:58 Food freedom and the “Underground Railroad”
15:14 Solving food deserts; on-ramps for new farmers
16:09 Small competitors driving industry change
16:47 Chicken processing showdown: sanitation rules
17:48 Federal inspection, legal battle, and victory
18:28 Family influence and origins of passion
19:28 Childhood failures redirecting to strengths
20:21 Embracing strengths and storytelling in business