It really disturbs me that the environmental movement has been co-opted by creation-worshippers instead of being encouraged by the Creator-worshippers. – Joel Salatin
An orchard can grow pastured poultry underneath. A beef cattle or sheep farm can run pastured poultry behind the herbivores, like the egret on the rhino’s nose. – Joel Salatin
We can’t begin to feed ourselves with a local-centric system if we lock up land in royal manor models. – Joel Salatin
The industrial food system is so cruel and so horrific in its treatment of animals. It never asks the question: ‘Should a pig be allowed to express its pig-ness?’ – Joel Salatin
We can move water easily with plastic pipes. We can move shade around with nursery cloth like a tinker toy for animals and plants. Yet we have developed this necessity to grow food with chemical fertiliser because we have forgotten the magic of manure. – Joel Salatin
I always said if I could figure out a way to grow Kleenex and toilet paper on trees, we could pull the plug on society. – Joel Salatin
What we’re looking at is God’s design, nature’s template, and using that as a pattern to cut around and lay it down on a domestic model to duplicate that pattern that we see in nature. – Joel Salatin
There’s a big difference between industrializing production of tractors and industrializing production of food. We like technology, but we really like technology that allows us to do better what nature does itself. – Joel Salatin
We believe that the farm should be building ‘forgiveness’ into the ecosystem. What does that mean? That a more forgiving ecosystem is one that can better handle drought, flood, disease, pestilence. – Joel Salatin
Throughout high school, I peddled my eggs, had a vendor stand at the local curb market – precursor to today’s farmers’ markets – and competed in 4-H contests and interscholastic debate. – Joel Salatin
The linear, single species idea of farming is an assault on ecological function. Something’s going to break down in that system – anything from soil structure, in economics… but where to start is with true ecological function. – Joel Salatin
Get in your kitchens, buy unprocessed foods, turn off the TV, and prepare your own foods. This is liberating. – Joel Salatin
Industrial agriculture, because it depends on standardization, has bombarded us with the message that all pork is pork, all chicken is chicken, eggs eggs, even though we all know that can’t really be true. – Joel Salatin
The cows shorten the grass, and the chickens eat the fly larvae and sanitize the pastures. This is a symbiotic relation. – Joel Salatin
The butcher, baker, and candlestick maker have been around a lot longer than supermarkets and Wal-Mart. – Joel Salatin
Our motto is we respect and honour the pigness of the pig and the chickenness of the chicken. That means not confining them in a house with hundreds of others. – Joel Salatin
I would suggest that if you get in your kitchen and cook for yourself, you can eat like kings for a very low cost. – Joel Salatin
That’s the joke about confinement pigs: they taste like whatever sauce you cook them with. – Joel Salatin
No civilization on the brink of collapse has ever changed fast enough to avert collapse. – Joel Salatin
Outrageous behavior, also known as the lunatic fringe, is the seed bed of innovation and creativity. – Joel Salatin
You can’t have a healthy civilization without healthy soil. You can’t have junk food and have healthy people. – Joel Salatin
I think it’s important to understand that in the big historical context of things, there has been land degradation from civilisation since the beginning of history. I mean, the Rajputana desert in India is a manmade desert caused by overgrazing. – Joel Salatin
Too often, parents whose children express an interest in farming squelch it because they envision dirt, dust, poverty, and hermit living. But great stories come out of great farming. – Joel Salatin