Creating Sustainable Agriculture Without Government Subsidies
An interview with “Christian-conservative-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic” Joel Salatin
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If I want to come to your farm, voluntarily, ask around, look around, and purchase what you have, that is a transaction that no society, historically, has criminalized. Until modern America. Rather than being progressive, we’re regressive—to the inquisition. Then it was dogma. Today it’s food. Why can’t we as a culture abide those who want to take personal responsibility for their food and their health? The reason is simple: national health care. The moment society owns your body through national health care, it has a vested interest in keeping you from doing things that might jeopardize your health. Eating pet food definitely could jeopardize your health. We cannot have food freedom as long as we don’t have health freedom. The more responsible society becomes for my life, the more it will inject its mob paradigm into what I can and cannot do, or eat.
Reason: In your most recent book Folks, This Ain’t Normal you write that “profitable farming is no more static than the culture.” You make this point to urge legislators and regulators to permit broader uses of farm property. What are some restrictions that haven’t allowed farms (and farmers) to change with the times?
Salatin: Perhaps the most obvious is zoning regulations. These come in many permutations, from planning commission overlays to preservation zones to agricultural districts. They all view farms as producers of raw commodities to be processed, value added, and sold somewhere else. This economic apartheid discourages integrated food systems and encourages segregated food and fiber.
Classifying, for example, butchering as manufacturing and not farming makes such historically normal farm activities illegal. In our county, charging school kids for an on-farm tour is illegal because education is not a permitted use of farmland. That’s to be done in schools. In fact, a local rocket club was banned from launching on a farm because farmland, according to the county commissioners, was not to be used “for fun.” Apparently farmers are supposed to keep their laughing to themselves.
These zoning and land use regulations are popping up everywhere, from precluding intern housing to even excluding a second generation from building a second home on the ranch due to greenbelt or land preservation requirements. The last remaining dairy in Montgomery County, Maryland is not fighting for its survival against a green space land trust because of the conservation easement these farmers put on their farm 30 years ago. Now the farmer realizes his survival depends on bottling his own milk and selling it to the urban community that has grown up around him. But the easement trust won’t let him put in a bottling facility because that is manufacturing, and not farming.
In our county, woodworking shops are illegal on farmland. So are sawmills. What better place to saw the logs or build from boards than near where the trees grow? Vineyards are constantly battling over the right to have tasting rooms, events, or even to make wine from a neighbor’s grapes because wine making is not considered farming: it’s manufacturing. And heaven help us if someone gets entertained on a farm. These regulations, started to reduce development, have now become a tool to destroy farm profitability in a day when more and more farmers are realizing the value of historically normal on-farm processing and recreational opportunities.
Interestingly, this is not a greenie vs. entrepreneurial divide. Many conservatives, especially agribusiness and large farms, don’t want consumers coming out to farms, whether to buy food or have a hootenanny, because they are afraid of disease, liability, and transparency. Greenies want to freeze the landscape in some pre-modern 1950s Mayberrry RFD mystique. Both sides converge to keep progressive farmers from being able to morph into modern resilience.
Reason: With the (largely) libertarian Reason audience in mind, is there any question you wish I'd asked that I did not? If so, please feel free to ask and answer the question.
Salatin: How should a libertarian view Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) technology?
First, GMOs, which I prefer to label transgenic modified organisms, are not simply an extension of Mendel’s peas. Mendel only crossed peas with peas to hybridize them. In transgenic modification, Mendel would have been crossing peas with carrots with salmon. That’s a completely different deal.
Realize that the very goal of this technology is to pollinate indiscriminately. The very nature of the beast is to roam the countryside, irrespective of boundaries, and impregnate plants willy-nilly, creating totally new life forms heretofore unimaginable. When the sexual plumbing does not match, you have to force the issue pretty hard.
I do not believe we need laws regulating GMOs any more than we needed laws to regulate pollution. If historic trespass law had been properly administered, we would not have needed either the Environmental Protection Agency or the Clean Water Act. When you pour something in the river that crosses my boundary, you are liable for it. For sure, businesses that pollute should be held liable for the total cost of the clean up. If it bankrupts them, so be it. In fact, I would say that the corporate officers should be held personally liable for those violations.
The old adage “your first ends at my nose” actually works for a lot of things. The first time Monsanto’s life form went across a fence and adulterated my plants, they should have been held liable for their fist hitting my nose. And I shouldn’t have to sue them; the district attorney should prosecute it just like a bank robbery or a murder. If that had been done, GMOs would never have been released on the planet to wreak the havoc they are currently wreaking.
Our culture has not become such a pawn of these large interests that today, not only is Monsanto not liable, but the farmer whose plants become impregnated with Monsanto’s patented life forms is liable for the privilege of having of allowing the promiscuity to occur in his fields. It’s unspeakably outrageous. Why the libertarians and conservatives can’t understand what this blatant disregard for property rights is doing to our jurisprudence and the basic American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness I can’t fathom. We are supposed to be secure from trespass in our persons and property—that’s the whole point of warrants for search and seizure. Granting Monsanto the right to roam the countryside with its property and violate the security of land and persons is unconscionable in any functional civilization. We have indeed been overtaken by the barbarians: they wear pin-striped suits and sit behind mahogany desks at the Supreme Court and Wall Street. It’s an unholy alliance if there ever was one.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
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FIll your hands you son of a FIST!
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What's the thinking on Salatin's next encounter with our masters? Drone, or SWAT?
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Why can't it be both?
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Your comment contains a word that is too long (50 characters).
He won't eat McDonalds but he eats at Arby's? Gross
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Anyone else read that name as Joe Stalin the first time?
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Nyet.
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Stop drinking. For a while.
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Not exactly, but I did think of it.
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Or... drink more. For a while.
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I like the way you think, good sir.
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Yep.
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I disagree about his disrespecting GMOs (for one thing, cross-species sharing of genes occurs naturally), but he is absolutely correct that it is outrageous that Monsanto is able to sue farmers for being the unwilling recipients of GMO crops. I am also doubtful whether it should be legal to patent genes, period.
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"he is absolutely correct that it is outrageous that Monsanto is able to sue farmers for being the unwilling recipients of GMO crops."
I would agree. Did it ever happen?
(my post certified by reason squirrels to contain no words longer than 50 characters) -
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Ah, link isn't working. Schmeiser planted non-Roundup Ready seeds on his farm, and pollen from Roundup Ready seeds pollinated his plants. Schmeiser saves seed to replant year after year, and after a time most of his crop had become Roundup Ready due to cross-pollination from another farm. Monsanto successfully sued him for using Roundup Ready seeds without a license. He battled and lost, and after 50 years of breeding and perfecting his own seed (his crop was canola), he had to destroy his seeds and purchase new ones, hand his '97 and '98 seed harvest over to Monsanto, and paid 400K Canadian in legal fees.
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"Monsanto successfully sued him for using Roundup Ready seeds without a license. He battled and lost,"
Yep. As well he should have.
As far as any critical reading of the story goes, he's a thief. -
Of all the stupid comments that could be made about the Schmeiser case, this one takes the cake. Back to the farm Salatin's intern, Sevo, and don't come back until you understand the fundamentals of seed-saving and property rights.
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How long before people like that are extinct and even home gardening is illegal? People will be shot not for growing pot but tomatoes.
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I wish you wouldn't exaggerate like that.
I'm sure they will only shot their dogs for the illegal growing of tomatoes.
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We're all thinking it, so I'm going to come out and say it. We should all going to muster at Polyface when the zombie apocolypse hits. We'll build a wall around it and hold out until the zombies play themselves out outside the fence.
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Ha! In such a situation if you think he'd be welcome to a lot of freeloaders taking up space and eating up all his food, you're probably going to be disappointed. You'd probably be standing on the wrong end of a 12-gauge being politely told to move along.
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outside the fence?
dont we ALL carry the virus?...or please pass the FoE & taters & sum pepper! -
Not to worry, FEMA camps will be set up to protect us from the "zombies."
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What the heck? Why can't I share this interview on Facebook? Reason ain't getting along with Zuckerberg?
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Huh, that is interesting. Anyway, I would just get the Share Bookmarklet for your browser and go that route.
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Hey, thanks.
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Why won't you post my comment?
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Because you think everything in a blockquote or italic is one word?
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WTF? where is this 50 character word you refuse to post?
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I think it thinks everything cut and pasted is one word.
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ATTENTION SERVER SQUIRRELS
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Give 'em a break, they're working through their "Dummies" books as fast as they can.
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Quotation marks and apostrophes are usually the culprits - replace the copy/pasted ones with fresh characters and the problem should go away.
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The old adage "your fist ends at my nose" actually works for a lot of things. The first time Monsanto's life form when across a fence and adulterated my plants, they should have been held liable for their fist hitting my nose.
Uh huh. And when the wind shifts and your life form goes across that same fence and adulterates their plants, you will be only too happy to be held liable. Right?
Too bad. I was really on board with you up till then. Turns out, you're just another rent seeker.
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I wouldn't call it rent seeking, but his views on the subject are extreme.
I don't know how it is here, but I've seen that in other countries this can be a huge problem because farms have to be certified in order to call their produce organic (and therefore get the higher price that organic produce commands).
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"I don't know how it is here, but I've seen that in other countries this can be a huge problem because farms have to be certified in order to call their produce organic (and therefore get the higher price that organic produce commands)."
In which case, he needs to enclose his fields. It's he who wishes to be 'certified'; he bares the costs of that.
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So it's OK to spray pesticides onto somebody else's property?
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Fatty Bolger|5.5.12 @ 1:41PM|#
"So it's OK to spray pesticides onto somebody else's property?"
I would presume most farmers, having paid for pesticides, would spray them on calm days. But if a breeze came up,you going to sue? For what damage? -
For turning your organic produce into non-organic produce. For costing you your certification as an organic farm.
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Fatty Bolger|5.5.12 @ 1:55PM|#
"For turning your organic produce into non-organic produce. For costing you your certification as an organic farm."Sorry, if farmer A *chooses* to 'certify' what he cannot deliver at his own cost, either he loses the cert, or he pays the costs to the surrounding farmers to maintain that cert.
Any bozo who gets a certification that can be voided by a wind carrying normally-used compounds is either too dumb to have any certification, or should be willing to cover the entire cost of maintaining it. -
Why isn't it "if farmer B chooses to spray his farm, either he guarantees the chemicals stay on his farm, or he pays damages for any chemicals that get on somebody else's land"?
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Whose farm was there first? If you set up your organic farm right next to a commodity farm field expect a little spillover. It's like moving next to an airport and complaining about the noise.
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SIV|5.5.12 @ 3:53PM|#
"Whose farm was there first?"
Sort of.
If farmer A gets his cert and thereby can claim damages from neighboring farms *prior to* any neighboring farms, the value of that land is reduced by that liability. Farmer A has used the government (cert) to 'take' value from the current owners.
If farmer A gets his cert *after* neighboring farms are established, and claims damages from those neighbors, farmer A is using the government (cert) as a rent-seeking device.
Either way, the government-granted cert is a way to 'take' from others. -
Joshua|5.5.12 @ 3:43PM|#
"Why isn't it "if farmer B chooses to spray his farm, either he guarantees the chemicals stay on his farm, or he pays damages for any chemicals that get on somebody else's land"?"For the same reason you don't pay 'damage' if moisture from your lawn sprayer ends up on your neighbor's lawn; there's no 'damage'.
The 'damage' in this case is only to a certification which farmer A chooses to get.
Farmer A can make that choice, but he cannot transfer the costs of that choice to his neighbors. -
Like if a neighbor paints his house and the overspray lands on your house. There's no 'damage', it's just got a little different color on it now. If the owner *chooses* to maintain a single color on the house, well, he just have to cover the costs for doing so.
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What is your logic here. The damage is not to the certification, the damage is to the crops. Also, the chemicals would be polluting the other farmer's land.
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where did he claim any hold harmless standing?
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Actually his reasoning is valid because he isn't patenting his crops.
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OT: Julia's circle of life, courtesy of Iowahawk
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That's fantastic.
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I saw this guy on some food documentary which was pretty good actually. The comments above are funny and all over the place! The guy has a unique name though :)
Ryan @ Portable Solar Generator
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If Gary Johnson wins the Presidency, might there be a role for Joel Salatin as Secretary of Agriculture (perhaps the last occupant of the post)?
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I have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery.
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just as Jeffrey explained I am alarmed that a mom able to profit $5474 in one month on the computer. have you seen this site makecash16.cøm
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Perennials rather than annuals form the basis of our program. http://www.nikewinkel.com/trai.....-c-58.html Perennials build soil; annual deplete soil. American ag policy only subsidizes annuals.
