Featuring:Interview with Joel Salatin, the keynote speaker at this week's upcoming NOFA Winter (1/16) event in Worcester will discuss his book, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal, war stories on the local food front and other topics relating to keeping food real.
In 1961, Joel's parents purchased an eroded farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Using nature as a pattern, they and their children began the healing and innovation that now supports three generations. The Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, moved cows daily with portable electric fencing, and invented portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.
Today the farm, Polyface, Inc ("The Farm of Many Faces") represents a model of America's non-industrial food production. Joel strives to develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world while pushing environmentally-friendly farming practices toward new levels of expertise. Polyface achieved iconic status as the grass farm featured in the New York Times bestseller Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Most recently Joel has been featured in the movie Food, Inc that explores the hidden, and often shocking, side of the nation's food industry.
Photo: The Salatin Family, photo provided by Polyface.
We'll also be speaking with Amy Cotler, author of The Locavore Way. The Berkshire resident who has tested thousands of recipes and wrote the definitive guide to serving healthy local food in Massachusetts Public Schools will talk about her new book.
