Author: Joel Salatin
Publisher: Chelsea Green, 2007
Soft Cover, 9″x6″, 352 pages

Drawing upon 40 years’ experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace. Their system favors industrial, global corporate food systems and discourages community-based food commerce, resulting in homogenized selection, mediocre quality, and exposure to non-organic farming practices. Salatin’s expert insight explains why local food is expensive and difficult to find and will illuminate for the reader a deeper understanding of the industrial food complex.

Called ‘the high priest of the pasture’ by The New York Times and prominently featured in the best-selling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Joel Salatin likes to refer to himself as a ‘Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer.’ He lives with his family on Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.