“A farm includes the passion of the farmer’s heart, the interest of the farm’s customers, the biological activity in the soil, the pleasantness of the air about the farm – it’s everything touching, emanating from, and supplying that piece of landscape. A farm is virtually a living organism.” – Joel Salatin

The deepest experience and impression of nature only arises on an individual level. There are many different stages of awakening awareness in nature, the most basic being the food we eat on a daily basis. Consider the packaged, wrapped, dehydrated, heavily processed food people commonly purchase. From the very beginning, people eating a majority of food of this sort are likely to be detached from nature, not to mention unhealthy. Modern industrial farms have concentrated themselves into a centralized business model relying on packing animals into small cages, spraying fields and crops with chemical pesticides, all of which is propped up through bureaucratic regulations that destroy local farms. My belief is that the nature experience, on a most basic and individual level, begins with local farms. People will have a much greater respect and understanding of nature when they regularly eat and observe whole, natural foods that come from a local source.

“Part of our responsibility as stewards of the earth is to respect the design of creation… That’s something you can devote your life for.” – Joel Salatin

Operating the Polyface Farm on 550 acres of land in the Shenandoah Valley, Joel Salatin is defying just about everyone when it comes to producing organic food. Salatin describes himself as a “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer,” and has focused his career on sustainable, environmentally-friendly, animal-friendly organic farming. One of the many unique aspects of Salatin’s approach is that he only sells food to individuals, restaurants, and other outlets within a four-hour-drive radius of his farm, in an effort to encourage people to purchase their food from local farms in their area.

“We think there is strength in decentralization and spreading out rather than in being concentrated and centralized.” – Joel Salatin

Salatin’s “secret” is feeding livestock a rich and diverse mixture of grass, which is supported with no pesticides or chemicals whatsoever. The cattle freely roam among the fields, restrained only by a portable electrified fence that can be easily moved in less than an hour with one or two people. The farm’s chickens are housed in portable coops that are transported with tractors. Salatin maintains a rotation of sorts by first letting cattle graze a portion of the field, and then letting the chickens roam that same area the following day. This simple process provides an easily maintained and renewable source of daily fresh grass for the cattle, gives the animals freedom to move around without much restraint, and it leads to incredibly tasty meat and eggs.

“I appreciate the fact that you obviously love life and the living.” – Polyface Farm customer

“You, as a food buyer, have the distinct privilege of proactively participating in shaping the world your children will inherit.” – Joel Salatin

This is a breath of fresh air compared to the industrial meat facilities today. In these facilities cattle are heavily restrained, the farmers hardly interact with the animals, and a huge portion of the cattle is fed corn (which is often grown with questionable techniques using pesticides and GMOs). Salatin has a tremendous respect of and connection with his animals; a connection that cannot come through the detached and horrific slaughtering processes in industrial meat facilities today. Clearly there is an importance in the environment animals are raised in and its impact on the taste and vibration of the food. Salatin sees and treats animals as free creatures, not soulless drones waiting to be eaten.

“I am a caretaker of creation. I don’t own it, and what I’m supposed to do is leave it in better shape for the next generation than I found it.” – Joel Salatin

The greatest gift Joel Salatin is giving to the world, however, is not his food. He is showing people that there is an alternative. What kind of impact would Salatin have if he simply held signs and protested to a corporate or government building? What effect would he have if he simply lobbied government to mandate his farming beliefs? Probably none at all, and no one would remember him for it. Salatin is taking action. He is not waiting around for someone else to implement his vision; he is taking initiative and proving that low-tech, sustainable, organic, animal and environmentally-friendly farming is not a lost cause. He is a living example that it is actually a tremendous success.

“I see myself today as Sitting Bull trying to bring a voice of Easternism, holism, community-based thinking to a very Western culture. If we fail to appreciate the soul that Easternism gives us, then what we have is a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process that counts on cleverness. Now, how’s that for a mouthful?” – Joel Salatin

Joel Salatin’s relentless pursuit of self-sufficiency has given us a remarkable example of how to happily and prosperously live in tune with the environment. All the buildings on his farm are constructed with lumber from the forest resting on his land. His animals are fed natural grass. The land is irrigated by its own ponds. He prospers through a local customer base who jump at the opportunity to support such a venture. Salatin’s achievements are laying the groundwork for the future of localism: respecting and appreciating the beauty and freedom of nature, working sustainably with animals on a very personal level, supporting both inner happiness and the local community, all through operating a profitable business. With individual initiative and creativity, nothing is impossible. Such is the story of Joel Salatin.

“How much evil throughout history could have been avoided had people exercised their moral acuity with convictional courage and said to the powers that be, ‘No, I will not. This is wrong, and I don’t care if you fire me, shoot me, pass me over for promotion, or call my mother, I will not participate in this unsavory activity.’ Wouldn’t world history be rewritten if just a few people had actually acted like individual free agents rather than mindless lemmings?” – Joel Salatin

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Oppressive monopolies will never be created by consumers and free individuals. If a “monopoly” were to appear in a free society because people liked the product, low price, and high quality, why should that be considered illegal? If a business grows in size because people voluntarily buy its product, there is nothing in the least oppressive about it. Today, though, the government is on the hunt for companies who are too big and represent a danger to consumers.

In 1914, through the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established. Its mission in a nutshell is to engage in “consumer protection” by patrolling for and breaking up anti-competitive monopolies. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the logic still doesn’t make sense.

In a free market economy people are given the freedom to use their money in the ways they see best. In nearly every case, this involves finding the best product for the lowest price. When companies like Wrigley’s, YouTube, Google, and countless others have a strong and growing market share, it is because people find their services and products the best value.

What the FTC assumes is that there are cases when a business will gain huge control over a market and use that to crush competition. The question you have to ask is, How did that business become that large in the first place? In a free market it would occur voluntarily from consumers, and its success would remain dependent on the people who got them there to begin with. If its customers were to back out and the company failed to change its practices, the business would not last. In a true, voluntary free market system it is the regulatory power of the individual, not a government agency, that controls the fate of a business.

“Consumer protection” is not something the government can empower through an agency. The one role the government has in protecting the consumer is protecting the consumer’s right to make its his own decisions without the hand of government influencing the decision through force. When the government starts making the regulatory decisions, the power of individual decisions (which a free market is built upon) becomes greatly diminished, skewed, and loses much of its influence.

A recent example of the FTC’s intrusion is its dealings with Whole Foods’ $565 million buyout of Wild Oats over the course of 2007 and 2008. The FTC charged that because of the buyout, Whole Foods would suddenly be able to dramatically increase prices, destroy competition, and essentially control the organic food retail market. There are several faults with the FTC’s theories.

For one thing, Whole Foods and Wild Oats, while some of the larger national organic food chains, do not have near that much influence over the organic food industry. The theory assumes that Whole Foods and Wild Oats purchase all the organic produce in the country, therefore controlling the supply. This in itself is ludicrous. Whole Foods’ revenue over the past year has totaled approximately $8 billion, while the sales of the organic food industry reached approximately $25 billion last year.

Secondly, Whole Foods brought on a good deal of debt to achieve the buyout. Raising prices beyond what consumers are willing to pay would lead to the company’s bankruptcy rather quickly. There is nothing forcing people to shop at Whole Foods, yet the FTC again makes this assumption.

Third, and most obviously, there are many stores where organic food is widely available as the industry quickly increases in size. The FTC made its attacks based on the strange idea that Whole Foods and Wild Oats controlled the organic food industry. There is no reasoning or statistic basis for these arguments, yet because it was the bidding of the FTC, the legal battles waged on for about one year.

What’s especially ironic here is that while this battle was being waged in the name of “consumer protection”, billions of dollars was being handed out to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-created corporations who you could say do have near monopolistic power over areas of mortgages. Don’t forget Bear Stearns, AIG, the auto businesses, and all the banks who were given billions of taxpayer dollars. Where was the FTC fighting for “consumer protection”?

When the government says that a company is “too big to fail,” doesn’t that mean it has a monopoly status? Since when does the government decide which companies can and can’t fail, all while funding the FTC to investigate, accuse, and battle individual businesses?

Anti-competitive businesses, which is the FTC’s stated purpose to prevent, are not created and do not succeed with a free market system. But they most certainly are created with a government-influenced economy where the government grants special favors to businesses, punishes others, and decides what companies succeed and fail. A free market, in which people can make their own decisions, will not and does not create harmful monopolies. Harmful monopolies can only be created with help from the government in one form or another.

With the escalation of unnecessary and abusive antitrust laws, government-supported and government-created corporations, and government bailouts, one thing is becoming much more clear. A business is no longer created for the benefit and liking of the customer, it is built for the approval and bidding of the government.

It is no longer the customers who control the fate of a business, but the government. It is no longer the individuals who have the supreme regulatory power, but the government. It is no longer the shareholders’ responsibility to control a business, but the government. It is no longer the people who rule the government, but the government who rules the people.

Truth, though, is never-ending and in the long run is the one thing that is sure to be victorious. Governments, tyrants, and central planners use everything in their power to destroy the laws of truth, freedom, and responsibility. But history has shown that it is those very laws of truth, freedom, and responsibility that lead to the inevitable destruction of deceitful principles, manipulation, and fraud, no matter if it is brought about by individual people or entire governments.

Therefore, it is these laws of truth, freedom, and responsibility, that will bring us back to our senses:

It is the customers who control the marketplace, not the government. It is the shareholders who make business decisions, not the government. A business is created to serve the people, not the government. Businesses answer to customers, not the government.

It is the people who know the best for themselves. Not the government.

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The Agriculture Adjustment Act greatly helped large farmers through the subsidies. Smaller farmers were run out of business and hired by the larger landowners, while customers took on higher prices. Even though this initial legislation proved to be very unpopular with the people of the U.S., today the federal government is still heavily involved with farm subsidies, encouraging larger farms, and disregarding the laws of the free market.

Over the past several years ethanol subsidies have come into the public eye. The federal government has been pumping billions of dollars into ethanol for years, and all we’ve had to show for it are record high corn prices worldwide, a ballooned and inefficient corn production, and yet ethanol still has made no headway as a viable energy alternative. Corn is connected to countless key food products, whether it be cattle feed or a primary food staple, but this has been totally disregarded in an effort to promote an unsustainable, inefficient, and costly energy source. The government subsidizes this irresponsible ethanol program while heavily limiting foreign, and possibly more viable, ethanol sources from being imported into the country.

Recently a new bill has popped into view and generated some buzz with the farm community. H.R. 875, The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced on February 4, 2009. The bill aims to create a Food Safety Administration (FSA) within the Department of Health and Human Services. The bill is quite complex, but I’ll do my best to break it down a bit here.

The FSA would be responsible for creating a national food safety system and enforcing it on “food establishments” through all the stages of food production. To ensure that the new safety systems are being followed, the FSA would create and implement a national system of “regular unannounced inspections of food establishments”. The FSA would design new regulations in order to have “minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water” in “growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations.”

What’s especially vague in the bill is the definition of the “food production facilities” who would be subject to the new agency and regulations. From the bill: The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation. The FSA would have the authority and ability to regulate state farms and commerce, areas previously largely out of reach of the federal government. Essentially all local, state, and inter-state food operations would be placed under the jurisdiction of the federal government, through the FSA. One thing that is clear about the bill is that it would greatly expand the regulatory powers of the federal government to unheard of levels in U.S. farming history.

You would think that the principles of the free market and individual responsibility would be respected a little bit more than this. The FSA would be able to enforce laws and bans that previously the FDA has not been able to, such as banning the sale of raw milk. Enacting national standards for all farms, large and small, would be disastrous for local farms. Local, smaller farms do not have the resources to go through such a regulated, bureaucratic, biased system. Just as the initial farm subsidies in the Great Depression eliminated many smaller farmers to the advantage of the larger ones, the FSA would create such a legal hoopla of new laws and regulations that it would be next to impossible for smaller farms to continue operations.

Whether it be through subsidies or increased regulations, these interventionist policies from the federal government always benefit the larger farms and their often unsustainable farming practices. Larger farms generally have a difficult time operating and surviving without using harmful pesticides and farming techniques that hurt the environment and decrease food quality. The FDA’s regulations and restrictions, as well as the subsidies from the federal government, promote larger farms, the unsustainable and inefficient farming practices they employ, while bogging down the local farmers who are often growing healthier food with more sustainable and environmentally-friendly farming methods.

I see farm subsidies as an attack on smaller, local farms. As the farms get larger, supported by subsidies and regulations that stifle the competition, the focus of the people drifts away from the local level. When this is done artificially through the support of the federal government, you get what we have today: large farms with unsustainable farming techniques, heavily processed food, and a system that would most likely be worthless were it not for harmful pesticides and preservatives. I would not argue against this nearly as much if it was a decision reached freely by the people through the free market. Food is one of the necessities of life, and when the government starts interfering with it and manipulating farms in favor of the larger businesses, the economy as a whole will be built on an artificial, unsustainable basis.

The consumer should be the most powerful regulator in a society, but that has been taken away first and foremost with the intervention in food industries. If we can’t make our own decisions about what we eat, can we seriously expect to make decisions about anything else in our personal lives? The federal government is not the regulator we need. Rather, we should be empowering people to make their own decisions through their local economy, community, and government. Local farms are the heart of local economies; discourage them and you build the foundation for nationalization, greater federal intervention into all industries, and a people who are no longer able to make their own decisions.

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