Notes from Your Farmer

Folks, This Ain’t Normal…Joel Salatin

Dis-sensus…it is the environment where creativity, solutions and ingenuity thrive.  It is what we have going on in our country around food.  In our lives we tend to get together to “build consensus”.  Come to a common place in order to move forward.  We negotiate and compromise.  However, solutions come from another place.  They come from the individual mind, bouncing off others, forming fledgling ideas that eventually turn into the solutions that move forward change.

Joel waxed poetic as only Joel can do with his, humorous, adjectives, noun and verb descriptions of the world in which we participate.  It was, as usual, an inspiring and alarming call to action.  To spend our dollars on local foods, understand the value of healthy real food that is clean, unadulterated, sustainable food. 

It was a call for a cultural change.   To understand the current path our government and food systems are on, feel confident that there are solutions we can participate in and through education we can teach the world to feed itself along with the responsibility that comes with stewardship of the land.  And apathy is its enemy.   

Joel pointed out how our government has “segregated” our food system.  Farmers are allowed to grow food but not allowed to sell it to the consumer.  Think about it.  The current regulations came about 60 years ago, when we little to know understanding of the bacteria, germ theory, and the havoc that can be brought by unclean conditions and overcrowding in city food processing systems.  The solutions solved a short term problem but not long term.  Today we are saddled with these antiquated regulations, segregating our food from us.  From the push to hurry food using fertilizers to antibiotics, it is unhealthy for us, the animals, the land and the planet overall.

And apathy is the enemy.  Read his new book.  It is the best for overall education I have found to date.

And finally, thank you so much for supporting us and your food system.  We are flirting with profitability each month.  We would like to be solid for the rest of the year.  If each family brings 3 new families to the farm to tour, at least one will become a new member.  It’s the big push for May!   And apathy is its enemy…

Your “Take Action” Farmer, Tara Smith