He showcases his whimsical sense of humor while driving a faded early-1980s Ford Bronco that has no windows and only gets washed by the rain.
“Most self-respecting farmers are supposed to have a side-by-side ATV, but I’m not a self-respecting farmer,” Salatin said. “I’ve got this old $2,000 Bronco. And it gets the job done.”
Regarded by many as the nation’s foremost authority on regenerative farming, Salatin is the author of more than a dozen books on the topic and travels around the world speaking at conferences and serving as a generously paid consultant.
An advocate for local food networks, independent farmers, and what he calls “personal choice in food sourcing,” he is outspoken about what he believes is “extreme government overreach” in agriculture.
After former President Donald Trump won a return to the White House in November, Salatin announced on his blog that the president-elect’s transition team contacted him to serve as a U.S. Department of Agriculture adviser and that U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) would serve as secretary of agriculture.
Instead, Trump nominated Brooke Rollins to head the Department of Agriculture.
Still, the 64-year-old Salatin said he is hopeful that the incoming Trump administration—which may include a Department of Health and Human Services led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—will remove government regulations that “are detrimental to farmers, and subsequently detrimental to consumers.”
Cumbersome Regulations
He noted that there are thousands of farm entrepreneurs ready to launch their clean food alternatives but that they can’t get to the marketplace because of these food regulations.“Four companies control 85 percent of what we eat in America,“ he said. “What we need is freedom of choice with our food.”
Salatin said that if Rollins is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Agriculture, he would like to see her swiftly enact a “Food Emancipation Proclamation” that would “allow direct farmer-to-consumer” transactions without cumbersome regulations.
“If you want to come to my farm and get sausage, I should be able to sell it to you without a bureaucrat being involved,” he said.
“If someone wants to do that now, I first have to take the pigs to a federally inspected processing facility, which has to pass through a whole bunch of licensing hoops to keep their license, and I have to pay them to do that.”
If it were legal, Salatin said, Polyface Farms would be a turnkey operation.
Instead, regulations require otherwise.
“We have to take that pig up the interstate to a slaughterhouse, and we pay a lot of money to bring it back,” he said. “We lose all of our guts, you know, the stuff that we could compost and use for fertilizer, and the income we could get by doing it ourselves.”
Salatin laments the plight of the modern independent farmer.
“Out of every dollar that’s spent at the grocery store, the farmer gets 9 cents of it on average,” he said.
“For beef, it’s higher. For wheat, it’s lower, but on average it’s 9 cents. So that means 91 of those cents are spent dealing with middlemen, transportation, processing, packaging, marketing, and distribution.”
It would be a “boon” to small farmers if government regulations were “significantly reduced,” Salatin said.
“Suddenly, a small farmer can make a better living and it would also be a wonderful multiple-choice option for consumers to be able to have a greater variety of quality food options at a more affordable price,” he said.
Advocates of expanded government oversight are saying “they trust government more than they trust small businesses and small farms,” and that “needs to change,” Salatin said.
“Raw milk is a perfect example,” he said. “The government demonizes raw milk as being unsafe. We subsidize $9 billion a year to Coca-Cola under a nutrition program, and we criminalize raw milk.
“I would suggest that Coca-Cola is far more dangerous than raw milk. I’m not suggesting that nobody’s ever gotten sick from raw milk. Has anybody ever gotten sick from Coca-Cola? Yeah, lots of people with all these obesity rates that are caused by consuming large amounts of sugar.”
Regenerative Methods
EarthDay.org reports that the United States is losing soil 10 times faster than it is being replenished.Large-scale farms produce most of the food and agricultural pollution, the site says, and those facilities are operated by industrial or foreign companies that “value short-term profits over the long-term health of our land and people.”
Salatin agreed and offered a simpler definition of regenerative farming.
“It’s all about leaving the land better off than when you found it,” he said.
“America is sick. More people are questioning the standard American diet. Food and farming go together. You can’t divorce food from farming.
“You must first have nutrient-dense farms to get nutrient-dense food.”
Salatin learned regenerative farming methods from his father, who bought the property where Polyface Farms sits in 1961.
The land was not fertile, eroded after decades of over-tilling and neglect.
Salatin’s father turned away from conventional farming and embraced regenerative methods such as planting trees, digging ponds, creating tall compost piles, and implementing rotational grazing.
The land is now lush and rich in nutrients.
Today, Polyface Farms provides beef, pork, poultry, and forestry products for more than 5,000 families, 50 restaurants, 10 retail outlets, and a farmer’s market.
Four generations of Salatin’s family live and work on the farm.
For centuries, Americans lived on locally sourced foods grown on farms free of chemicals. A change started when chemical fertilizers became widespread, which has led to depleted soil and unhealthy foods, Salatin said.
Even in the 1940s, some people cautioned that using “chemical manure” would result in the loss of soil fertility, according to Salatin.
“The quickest way to destroy the land is to de-vegetate it, and plowing is No. 1,” he said.
Planting monocrops, which means just one type of crop, year after year is the second fastest way to destroy the soil, he said, and the third fastest way to destroy soil is by using chemical fertilizers.
Salatin implements biodiversity. For example, Polyface Farms shelters rabbits, chickens, and pigs “all in the same hoop house” during the winter instead of separating them like a conventional farm would.
Pathogens from rabbit droppings encounter chicken droppings, which are toxic to the rabbit pathogen. The chicken droppings then kill the rabbit pathogen before infecting another animal without chemical intervention.
Biodiversity creates necessary checks and balances on farms, Salatin said.
“Birds, for example—birds are God’s pesticides,” he said. “They eat bugs. But birds don’t feel comfortable going more than 200 yards from cover. So on our farm, for example, we’ve created Forestal zones within 200 yards of all the open land so that birds always have a shelter and a place to go.
“So they will come out and eat bugs in the field because they have a habitat that’s sheltering for them within 200 yards. Those are the kinds of things that you get with diversity.”
Salatin stops the Bronco about a half-mile from the hoop houses. He steps out, walks 50 yards, and stands surrounded by pigs that are bustling with energy. The pigs live in the pasture until they are brought inside for the winter.
“They get moved every five to ... 10 days or so,” he said. “They get to run around and eat some grass. They get to run around in the fresh air and sunshine, and they get to have a wonderful life.
“We’ve learned over the years ... that our meat cooks about 15 to 20 percent faster than regular store-bought meat. Why? Our animals never secrete adrenaline because they’re happy and not stressed.
“Animals that are confined get stressed and spend their whole life secreting adrenaline. You can eat happiness or eat stress. I think eating happiness tastes better and is healthier.”
Polyface Farms moves livestock daily, Salatin said, because animals in nature migrate.
“One of the quickest ways to increase the diversity in our microbiome is with pastured eggs, pastured beef, pastured pork, animals that have been on the salad bar of diversity so that they have all these different elements in them,” Salatin said.
Living Self-Sufficiently
Initially, Salatin was a reporter at the local newspaper in Staunton, Virginia.“I figured I would be like Woodward and Bernstein and uncover a scandal, write my bestseller, and retire to the farm,” Salatin said with a laugh. “That was the trajectory I had in mind.”
Instead, he graduated from college, married Teresa, fixed up an attic in the old farmhouse on the Polyface Farms property, and lived frugally.
“We drove a $50 car, a 1966 Dodge Coronet that I eventually sold for parts for $75,” he said. “We lived so cheaply that we were able to save half our paychecks. We never went on vacation. We didn’t go anywhere, we didn’t go to movies, we didn’t eat out. If we didn’t grow it, we didn’t eat it. And we lived on $300 a month.
“We had cows and sold the beef directly to some local customers. We didn’t have very many, but remember, we were living on 300 bucks a month, so we didn’t need much income.”
On Sept. 24, 1982, Salatin left the newspaper and the couple decided to solely farm.
“I'll be the first to say I thought I might have to go back to work,” he said. “I didn’t know this full-time farming gig would work. But I had vision. I’m thankful that somehow, for some reason, God gave me vision.”
Salatin encourages would-be farmers to mimic his frugal living plan when starting. He recommended living in an RV or a tent and dropping expenses way down.
“Don’t go out to eat, don’t go on vacation, don’t go to a movie,” he said. “Don’t drink coffee, don’t smoke. Don’t get a cigarette. Don’t get Uber Eats. Don’t get takeout. If you truly want to do this and be successful, make sacrifices so you have minimal expenses.
Polyface Farms
Salatin’s father, an accountant, formed a corporation for the farm and wanted to call the venture Salatin Inc., his son recalled.“I vehemently opposed the idea,” he said. “We'd discuss this while milking our two cows—two Guernseys. I said, ‘Dad, this is bigger than our family. There may be a day when a Salatin isn’t running this thing.’ I wanted it more open-ended, and Dad let me win with Polyface.”
Salatin has long met with resistance from neighboring farmers who don’t approve of his regenerative farming practices. One naysayer called him a “lunatic,” he said.
Instead of taking offense to the barb, Salatin took what was intended as an insult and used it as his moniker.
“I knew there was opposition to my message of regenerative farming, but man, I have to say I was surprised at the level of hatred I’ve gotten,” he said.
For many sustainable living and regenerative agriculture enthusiasts, visiting Polyface Farms is a pilgrimage. Salatin offers a variety of tours.
“We have a 24/7, 365 days a year open-door policy. We are completely transparent,” Salatin said.
“We also have a two-hour walking tour and the Lunatic tour,” he said, adding that he or his son, Daniel, usually leads this tour.
The Lunatic tour features a two-and-a-half-hour wagon-guided adventure around Polyface Farms.
Salatin also holds a two-day “intensive discovery” seminar.
“We build compost, we move cows, we move pigs, we cut trees, we mill lumber. I mean, it’s as behind the curtain as we can do,” he said.
Many people recognize the importance of becoming more self-sufficient, but they have no idea where to start, Salatin said.
‘Homesteading Tsunami’
Salatin calls what is happening a “homesteading tsunami.”“There’s been a real disconnect between the younger generation and where their food comes from,” Salatin said.
“There is a self-reliant persona in rural regions that doesn’t exist in urban regions where there is unrest and violence.
“People have an intuition that there is more opportunity in the country than in the city to be self-sufficient.
“The problem is we are now several generations removed from commonly knowing how to gut a chicken, tap a maple tree, and plant tomatoes.
“When you make a change from your routine in life, you need support, and that is why the homesteading and sustainable living events are important, and that’s why I do what I do.”
Salatin appreciates enthusiasm, but he urges novice homesteaders to rein in their ambitions and begin cautiously.
“Start with a garden, start with plants; they can’t run away,” Salatin said. “Some people get too enthusiastic and get a Scottish Highlander cow they saw somewhere and a half-hour after bringing her home, she escapes and there are state police looking all over for her.
“Read books, watch videos, attend events, and find mentors. Build relationships with people who know how to build things, grow things, and fix things—people who you can learn from. That is the best 401(k) you can have.”
