Joel Salatin

“I didn't really see a way to make a living on the farm. I always loved writing. I was the guy who won the D.A.R. essay contest and things like that, and it was the era of Watergate, and I decided I would be the next Woodward and Bernstein, and then retire to the farm.”

“Land degradation did not start with chemical agriculture. But chemical agriculture offered new tools for annihilation.”

“The cows shorten the grass, and the chickens eat the fly larvae and sanitize the pastures. This is a symbiotic relation.”

“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.”

“We only want autonomous collaborators that are incentivized to make or break their own income.”

“We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure.”

“We can't begin to feed ourselves with a local-centric system if we lock up land in royal manor models.”

“It really disturbs me that the environmental movement has been co-opted by creation-worshippers instead of being encouraged by the Creator-worshippers.”

“Unfortunately in the U.S., the courts have pretty much sided with the GMO lobby and suggesting that a farmer has no rights to be protected from GMO contamination.”

“If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly first.”

“We move the cows every day to a new spot which allows the grass time to recuperate and go through its what I call 'the teenage growth spurt.'”

“Choose to patronise your local farmers; as eaters, you need to demand a different type of food. Appreciate the pigginess of the pig.”

“Nature moves towards balance.”

“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.”

“We would be a much healthier culture if the government had never told us how to eat.”

“I'm incredibly optimistic about what individuals can do. We have technology that our grandparents would have given their eye teeth for.”

“In general, we run the farm like a business instead of a welfare recipient, and we adhere to historically-validated patterns.”

“We will never sell or have an IPO. What that does is suddenly flushes you with cash. It makes you now work for a group of stockholders, who, again, put pressure and temptations on your true-blueness.”

“My imperative is to seek every moment and to live so God is in control.”

“You can't have a healthy civilization without healthy soil. You can't have junk food and have healthy people.”