Here’s another in a series of thought-provoking quotes, plus my two cents.
- Everything I want to do is illegal.
- –Joel Salatin, the “beyond organic” farmer featured in Food Inc. and The Omnivore’s Dilemma
This is also the title of one of Salatin’s books. When I heard him speak, I finally understood what his brand of libertarianism was all about: Feds, get off my farm. The bureaucratic, corporate-aligned USDA has sole discretion over what food can be legally sold to consumers. What Salatin wants to do is provide his customers with well-raised, clean meat and vegetables free of pesticides. And he wants to make a modest living doing so. But he’s constantly swimming upstream, given the USDA’s intrusive and burdensome regulations–regulations that strongly favor large-scale industrial operations. Most people who have tried to do what he’s doing have lost their farms.
