Farmer emphasizes respect, healing, stewardship of land at conference

    Salatin was at Bluestone Camp and Retreat center May 22 to speak at a Stewardship of the Land event, hosted by several Presbyterian organizations. He works at Polyface Inc., a family-owned, pasture-based, local-market farm in Swoope, Va. He has also written several books and is a well-known lecturer. Polyface was featured in the documentary Food, Inc. and the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
    Salatin spoke of 1 Cor. 10:31, in which Paul says “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”
    Paul highlights everyday activities like eating and drinking “to express the depth of God’s penetrating existence in our lives, even in the mundane, ‘non-spiritual’ parts of our lives,” according to Salatin. People like to compartmentalize their lives, separating activities into “spiritual” and “non-spiritual.” But doing so ignores “how all-encompassing the spiritual aspects of our lives should be.
“We should be thinking, ‘Is this bringing glory to God?’” about everything we do, Salatin said.
    Asking that question helps us to appreciate the omnipresence of God. For farmers like him, Salatin said there’s a different form of that question: Is there a godly way to farm?  His waking prayer is that he runs his farm as an instrument of God’s will.
    “At the end of the day, this farm should be my expression of your glory,” he prays.
    Salatin discussed several overarching themes of the Bible. One of the first things God does is bring order out of chaos, he said. When we see dysfunction, it’s the manifestation of something out of order. Part of humans’ job is to enhance natural order. For example, in nature, herbivores such as cows eat plants. They don’t eat other cows. But some farmers feed cow parts to cows. In nature, cows graze, and Salatin’s farm mimics this natural tendency.
    Another Biblical theme is forgiveness and redemption. On a farm, redemption would mean that there’d be little sickness and much resiliency, Salatin said, adding that such a farm wouldn’t stink — it would be “aesthetically and aromatically pleasant.” This isn’t the case with industrial farming or livestock centers.
“You shouldn’t have to put on a Hazmat suit to visit a farm,” Salatin said.
    Much farming and ranching has debilitated the land instead of making it more productive. The Westward Expansion in the United States was largely because soil in the East had been worn out by farming, Salatin said. “Instead of having our footprints be abusive and degenerative, our footprints should be generative and build soil,” he said.
    The Bible also discusses the use of a person’s gifts and talents. We are specific and unique individuals, but modern culture doesn’t view life from an intrinsic value standpoint. Instead, culture views life as being subject to clever manipulation, Salatin said.
    But Polyface wants pigs to express their “pig-ness,” chickens their “chicken-ness” and tomatoes their “tomato-ness.” Not respecting the life forms that sustain us can lead to not respecting life.
    “We have created an ethic that moves from field to plate,” Salatin said. “A culture that doesn’t respect its pigs and chickens … how does it teach respect to individual people?”
    Allowing pigs and chickens to use their gifts and talents is essential. Some chickens in captivity have to have their beaks removed so that they won’t attack each other. But why would they cannibalize? Because they can’t live as chickens are meant to live, Salatin said. But viewing pigs and chickens as “co-laborers in this land-healing ministry” changes the system.
    Salatin also touched on the Biblical theme of healing. Rather than attacking our enemies, why not build ourselves up, creating immunity? he asked. We should work to heal ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
The goal is to have more abundance, more diversity, more earthworms, and greener farms.
    “Those are goals that are sacred enough to take the passion of a heart for a lifetime,” he said.