Notes from Food Day with Joel Salatin

Notes from Food Day with Joel SalatinAt NOVA the community college where I teach, the Loudoun Campus held Food Day yesterday and somehow managed to get Joel Salatin to come. Amazingly, the auditorium of 250 or so was only 2/3 full due to insufficient advertising, and half of those people were local DC area residents rather than NOVA students. But the morning speech and question and answer session by Salatin and the afternoon discussion panel were extremely informative, he was at his usual best.

A boggling amount of big ideas were thrown around, here are a few. Salatin said he was asked to focus on the economic aspects of food systems rather than the nature of farming itself, but as always he hit on a little bit of everything.

From Salatin:
-What do you pay for when you pay more for local food?
Intelligent farmers
Better land stewardship and preservation - many more eyes on the land

-Small local farms are very hard to get into big supermarkets because of all the bureaucracy and regulations involved. His farm and many others do not have vaccinated pigs and other measures required by supermarkets. There should not be "10 layers of bureaucracy" between a producer and transaction.

-Much discussion about how we do not include environmental and health costs in the cost of food and investments. Can you imagine going to a bank for a farm loan and the banker says that first he has to know what the effect on earthworms will be? Point was, we do not take into account the true effects of ways of farming including health, long term effects, effects on soil.

-Said an author says should spend a year walking a landscape and making notes before starting to farm there. Know the lanscape, eyes on the land.

-US has 2X more prisoners than farmers

-Private property should not deplete the commons.

-Much discussion on building vibrant, living soil and soil health is a key goal of farming. Contrasted with industrial farming which tends to create dead soil through chemical pesticides and overuse. Key word is "massage" soil and nature rather than pound it with chemicals. Want soil to be alive, tons of interesting living processes going on in the soil.

-GDP only counts cost of things we produce, not true value of them. Said Wendell Berry says GDP measures more about what's wrong than what's right. GDP not a measure of well-being.

-Mentioned Wendell Berry multiple times, midwestern poet.

-Know your farmer. If you visit a farmer at a farmer's market three times and he doesn't ask you to come visit, rule of thumb is there's a problem.

-Along same lines, local farmers can use GMOs and do not always produce grass-fed products. Have to ask if they are grain fed and use GMO.

-Costco does not accept a truck smaller than an 18-wheeler which excludes most small farmers.

-Pigs love acorns and do well on them, can live in forest easily. Plenty of biomass to feed animals all over the place, going wasted.

-Along same lines, use silviculture i.e. forestry to harvest biomass.

-"What's worth doing is worth doing poorly." In reference to starting new habits like cooking at home and buying from local farmers. Gave analogy of a toddler in a diaper trying to stand up. Even if they can't do it perfectly, it is worth doing, keeping at it. Should encourage it.

-Fundamentally a good food system has to be home-centered. Has to be based in cooking your own food.

-Great exchange when a lady raised her hand and complained that cooking at home is hard "who has 2 hours every night with kids? and that local/organic food was too expensive and about having been poor and had only pennies and was forced to eat Spaghetti-Os. Salatin did not give it second thought, he must have heard this 1000 times: "Have you every bought a 50 pound bag of oats? You can live a long time on a 50 pound bag of oats." In sum he said he doesn't believe in "I can't."

Considering that Spaghetti Os are just basically cans of flour, oats is easily a substitute, healthier because it has more fiber and much cheaper in bulk. Also mentioned a Crock Pot, how easy it is to throw stuff in and have it ready at night with minimal effort. To me, this lady simply didn't have any idea how to cook or buy food or know anything about nurtition. If it takes you at least 2 hours to cook, you don't belong in a kitchen.

-Asked if there is any country whose food system is not broken and can serve as a model. At first he said he didn't know of any but then mentioned some things below going on in other countries.

-In Zimbabwe he mentioned Allan Savory from TED Talks said they have an innovative tax system for farmers: farm taxes start out very high but you can lower them in three ways which include reducing erosion, creating more biodiversity, lowering toxicity. Each one lowers tax, if you do all three, you pay no tax. Pretty cool. Said they have a monitoring box that goes in the ground to check soil runoff and pesticide.

-Mentioned he was in mountainous New Zealand and said that while it is famous for being one of the "greenest" countries in the world, he said it was not a good example of a good food system. Said he saw heavy superphosphate use as fertilizer for sheep and dairy farms and major hillside erosion dumping phosphates into rivers.

-Mentioned that he was in the Netherlands and saw a vending machine that dispenses raw milk. I found this article:
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/americans-envy-europes-raw-milk-vending-machines/

-Got into politics somewhat. Emphasized that federal government needs to be shrunk while local needs to be strengthened. Mentioned Jeffersonian ideals, the Gentleman Farmer. Said that strengthening local government encourages a culture of innovation. (see Tocqueville and also the principle of subsidiarity).

-Mentioned he is half Spanish. I knew he lived in Venezuela as a kid but did not know he had Spanish heritage.

-Emphasized that there is tons of extra money around for the "extra" cost of good food.

-Emphasized all the wasted time among young people on video games, TV, and partying on Friday nights. Said if they could harness that energy could do great things.

-For young aspiring farmers, suggested finding a farmer and going to work for him, not necessarily as apprentice just doing stuff for him like digging fence posts. For some sort of relationship.

-Asked if going to college for agriculture degree was worth it, like Virginia Tech? No.

-Mentioned that many synthetics are not the same as the real thing. Example: CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) one of the key good fats in red meat. You can buy a synthetic version in the Vitamin Shoppe but it has one neutron difference from the real thing - "nobody knows the importance of that one neutron."

-Emphasized that current laws against raw milk are leftovers of the early industrial era when toxins abounded in cities, horse poop was all over the streets in major cities. Said the laws are long outdated and no reason why raw milk should not be sold among consenting adults.

-Gave example of innovative food sovereignty law in Sedgewick, Maine. 1/2 page law would allow citizens to buy and sell whatever they want, including raw milk. I found this article
http://www.naturalnews.com/039633_sedgwick_food_freedom_federal_laws.html

-Polyface does not deliver over 4 hours. Believes it is good to be local.

-Emphasized that "organic" does not mean healthy and that many unhealthy things can pass as organic.

-176 synthetics allowed in "organic" food.

-"Free range" actually just means chickens can leave cage in a small three foot space, does not mean they roam freely

-Emphasized the problem with organic labels is they are not comprehensive. Since different standards apply to each food, should not be graded on a "pass/fail" basis. Should be scored on multiple categories and sliding scales.

-New Virginia law proposed: buy food of choice from farmer of choice. 2 year process, will be on ballot in future. Citizens could sue state for denying food sovereignty.

-Emphasized that the reason food choice is not in the Bill of Rights is because it is so fundamental the Founding Fathers could not imagine not having the right to buy and sell food.

-Genetic Trespass could outlaw GMOs - meaning non GMO farmers could sue GMO farmers for having their seeds trespass into their field by wind, water, etc.

-Encourage multi-speciated, stacking, regenerative, productive, enterprising, mosaic

-Wheat normally ferments in the harvesting process as it is stored in bails bunched up. With modern harvesting, however, wheat is not stored, instantly gathered so no time to ferment. This changes its properities especially digestibility.

-Chicken manure 11 to 1 fertilizer strength vs. cow manure

-Mentioned Sweden is opening up land in north expecting warmer climate with climate change, hopes to add population and agriculture

-Values matter

-Europe has fewere GMOs

-Different GMOs are allowed for animal feed vs. feeding people


Other speakers:Biotechnology speaker gave example of a good use of GMOs, saving American chestnut trees from extinction.

Roundup phosphate has created resistance and superweeds

Glyphosate in wheat sprayed to keep from bunching up, could be link to disease. Other panelist said glyphosate breaks down quickly.

Audience member said in India cotton growers used at BT genetically modified cotton and had diseases, likely from the pesticides and fertilizers. Had a lot of cotton but not worth it.

-Hawaii - GMO papayas - getting infections