Joel Salatin spoke to a packed crowd in the Hanes Art Center Auditorium Wednesday evening. His twelve-point speech focused on debunking common myths about building a local, sustainable food economy.
Salatin is well-known for his books speaking out about the issues plaguing America’s current industrialized food system and about how the average consumer can support a more sustainable, healthier, local food system in the United States.
He has appeared in several documentaries including Food, Inc., Fresh, and a new film coming out next month called Farmageddon.
Salatin spent most of his time speaking on the myth that “You can’t feed the word with small farms.” He responded by describing an initiative to “hook chickens to kitchens.”
Eliminating the transportation of food and waste by keeping the source of food close to home has been proven to stop hundreds of tons of decomposing food materials from going into landfills.
His voice took on an almost spiritual tone as he spoke about what he called, “rampant anthropomorphism in society.” Salatin said that although our society tends to treat animals like people, “everything is eating and gets eaten,” “there can be no life without death,” and “sacrifice precedes regeneration.”
Salatin hopes that people will respect plants and animals enough to elevate their sacrifice on the behalf of our health and well-being.
The last point of his address was that he was “here to introduce Jeffersonian intellectual agrarians.” Salatin spoke critically of those who assume farmers are uneducated and unskilled, and challenged farmers to represent themselves as the knowledgeable and articulate workers that they are.
He expressed the hope that farming will become a legitimate career choice that young people will express interest and pride in choosing to become a farmer.
After Salatin spoke, there was a question and answer session followed by a book signing and local food tasting all sponsored and organized by the UNC Sustainability Office.
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