Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

by Joel Salatin ON-FARM PROCESSING Our whole culture suffers from an

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verything I want to do is illegal. As I want to dress my beef and pork on the industrial food system that has made
if a highly bureaucratic regulatory farm where I’ve coddled and raised it. But every part disconnected from the rest.
system was not already in place, zoning laws prohibit slaughterhouses on Smelly and dirty farms are supposed to be
9/11 fueled renewed acceleration to agricultural land. For crying out loud, in one place, away from people, who
eliminate freedom from the countryside. what makes more holistic sense than to snuggle smugly in their cul-de-sacs and
Every time a letter arrives in the mail put abattoirs where the animals are? But have not a clue about the out-of-sight-
from a federal or state agriculture depart- no, in the wisdom of Western dis- out-of-mind atrocities being committed to
ment my heart jumps like I just got sent to connected thinking, abattoirs are massive their dinner before it arrives in micro-
the principal’s office. centralized facilities visited daily by a waveable, four-color-labeled, plastic
And it doesn’t stop with agriculture steady stream of tractor trailers and illegal packaging. Industrial abattoirs need to be
bureaucrats. It includes all sorts of alien workers. located in a not-in-my-backyard place to
governmnet agencies, from zoning, to But what about dressing a couple of sequester noxious odors and sights.
taxing, to food inspectors. These agencies animals a year in the backyard? How can Finally, the retail store must be located in
are the ultimate extension of a discon- that be compared to a ConAgra or Tyson a commercial district surrounded by lots
nected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocen- facility? In the eyes of the government, of pavement, handicapped access, public
tric, compartmentalized, reductionist, the two are one and the same. Every toilets and whatever else must be required
frag-mented, linear thought processs. T-bone steak has to be wrapped in a to get food to people.
half-million dollar facility so that it can be The notion that animals can be raised,
sold to your neighbor. The fact that I can processed, packaged, and sold in a model
do it on my own farm more cleanly, more that offends neither our eyes nor noses
responsibly, more humanely, more cannot even register on the average
efficiently, and in a more environmentally bureaucrat’s radar screen — or, more
friendly manner doesn’t matter to the importantly, on the radar of the average
government agents who walk around with consumer advocacy organization.
big badges on their jackets and Besides, all these single-use megalithic
wheelbarrow-sized regulations tucked structures are good for the gross domestic
under their arms. product. Anything else is illegal.
OK, so I take my animals and load
them onto a trailer for the first time in ON-FARM SEMINARS
their life to send them up the already & ‘AGRITAINMENT’
clogged interstate to the abattoir to await In the disconnected mind of modem
their appointed hour with a shed full of America, a farm is a production unit for
animals of dubious extraction. They are commodities — nothing more and
dressed by people wearing long coats nothing less. Because our land is zoned as
with deep pockets with whom I cannot agricultural, we cannot charge school kids
even communicate. The carcasses hang in for a tour of the farm because that puts us
a cooler alongside others that were not in the category of “Theme Park.” Anyone
similarly cared for in life. After the paying for infotainment creates
animals are processed, I return to the “Farmadisney,” a strict no-no in agri-
facility hoping to retrieve my meat. cultural zones.
When I return home to sell these Farms are not supposed to be places of
delectable packages, the county zoning enjoyment or learning. They are commod-
ordinance says that this is a manu- ity production units dotting the landscape,
factured product because it exited the just as factories are manufacturing units
farm and was reimported as a value- and office complexes are service units. In
added product, thereby throwing our farm the government’s mind, integrating farm
into the Wal-Mart category, another production with recreation and meaning-
prohibition in agricultural areas. Just so
you understand this, remember that an on-
Reprinted from
farm abattoir was illegal, so I took the
animals to a legal abattoir, but now the
selling of said products in an on-farm
store is illegal. September 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 9
ful education creates a warped sense of basically another layer of taxes on our child activity is recreation, sitting in a
agriculture. gross sales. The business license requires desk, or watching TV. That’s it. That’s the
The very notion of encouraging people a commercial entrance, which on our extent of what children are good for.
to visit farms is blasphemous to an official country road is almost impossible to Anything else is abusive and risky.
credo that views even sparrows, starlings acquire due to sight-distance requirements Then we wonder why these kids grow
and flies as disease threats to immuno- and width regulations. Of course, zoning up unmotivated and bored with life. Our
compromised plants and animals. Visitors prohibits businesses in our agricultural local newspaper is full of articles and
entering USDA-blessed production unit zones. Remember, people are supposed to letters to the editor lamenting the lack of
farms must run through a gauntlet of toxic be kept away from agricu-ltural areas — things for young people to do. Let me
sanitation dips and don moonsuits in order people bring diseases. suggest a few things: digging postholes
to keep their germs to themselves. Indeed, and building a fence, weeding the garden,
people are viewed as hazardous foreign planting some tomatoes, splitting some
bodies at Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations (CAFOs). Our whole culture wood, feeding the chickens, washing
eggs, pruning grapevines, milking the
Farmers who actually encourage folks
to come to their farms threaten the health
suffers from an industrial cow, building a compost pile, growing
some earthworms.
and welfare of their fecal concentration food system that has These are all things that would be
camp production unit neighbors, and wonderfully meaningful work experience
therefore must be prohibited from made every part discon- for the youth of our community, but you
bringing these invasive germ-dispensing
humans onto their landscape. In the nected from the rest. can’t simply employ people anymore. A
host of government regulatory paperwork
industrial agribusiness paradigm, farms surrounds every “could you come over
must be protected from people, not to and help us . . . ?” By the time an
mention free-range poultry. Even if we could comply with all of the employer complies with every
The notion that animals and plants can above requirements, a retail outlet carries Occupational Safety & Health Admin-
be raised in such a way that their with it a host of additional regulations. We istration requirement, posts every
enhanced immune system protects them must provide designated handicapped government bulletin requirement, with-
from kindergarteners’ germs, and that the parking, government-approved toilet holds taxes, and shoulders Unemploy-
animals actually thrive when marinated in facilities (our four household bathrooms ment Compensation burdens and medical
human attention, never enters the minds in the two homes located 50 feet away and child safety regulations — he or she
of government officials dedicated to from the retail building do not count) — can’t hire anybody legally or profitably.
protecting precarious production units. and it can’t be a composting toilet. We The government has no pigeonhole for
must offer x-number of parking spaces. this: “I’m a 17-year-old home-schooler,
COLLABORATIVE MARKETING Folks, it just goes on and on, ad nauseum, and I want to learn how to farm. Could I
I have several neighbors who produce and all for simply trying to help a come and have you mentor me for a
high-quality food or crafts that comple- neighbor sell her potatoes or extra year?”
ment our own meat and poultry. Dried pumpkins at Thanksgiving. I thought this What is this relationship? A student?
flower arrangements from one artisan, was the home of the free. In most An employee? If I pay a stipend, the
pickles from another, wine from another, countries of the world, anyone can sell government says he’s an employee. If I
and first-class vegetables from another. any of this stuff anywhere, and the don’t pay, the Fair Labor Standards board
These are just for starters. hungering hordes are glad to get it, but in says it’s slavery, which is illegal. Doesn’t
Our community is blessed with all the great U.S. of A we’re too sophisticated matter that the young person is here of his
sorts of creative artisans who offer to allow such bioregional commerce. own volition and is happy to live in a
products that we would love to stock in tee-pee. Housing must be permitted and
our on-farm retail venue. Doesn’t it make EMPLOYING LOCAL up to code. Enough already. What
sense to encourage these customers YOUNGSTERS & INTERNS happened to the home of the free?
driving out from the city to be able to go Any power tool — including a cordless
to one farm to do their rural browsing/ screwdriver — cannot be operated by BUILD A HOUSE
purchasing rather than drive all over the people under the age of 18. We have lots THE WAY I WANT
countryside? Furthermore, many of these of requests from folks wanting to come as You would think that if I cut the trees,
artisans have neither the desire nor time to interns, but what do we call them? The mill the logs into lumber, and build the
deal with patrons one-on-one. A government has no category for interns or house on my own farm, I could make it
collaborative venue is the most win-win, neighbor young people who just want to however I wanted to. Think again. It’s
reasonable idea imaginable — except to learn and help out. illegal to build a house less than 900
government agents. We’d love to employ all square feet. Period. Doesn’t
Reprinted from
As soon as our farm offers a single the neighboring young matter if I’m a hermit or the
item — just one — that is not produced people. To our child- father of 20. The
here, we have become a Wal-Mart. Period. fawning and worshiping government agents have
That means a business license, which is culture, the only appropriate September 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 9 decreed, in their egocentric
wisdom, that no human can live in How a culture deals with its misfits ers, it is merely another example of fear
anything less than 900 square feet. reveals its strength. The stronger a culture, replacing faith.
Our son got married last year and the less it fears the radical fringe. The Faith in what? Faith in diversity. Faith
wanted to build a small cottage on the more paranoid and precarious a culture, in each other. Faith in people’s ability to
farm, which he now oversees for the most the less tolerance it offers. self-educate, thereby making informed
part. Our new saying is, “He runs the When faith in our freedom gives way decisions. Faith in seekers to find
farm, and I just run around.” The plan was to fear of our freedom, then silencing the answers. Faith in marketplace dynamics
to do what Mom and Dad did for Teresa minority view becomes the operative to reward integrity and not cheating. Faith
and I — trade houses when children protocol. The Native Americans silenced in Creation to heal. Faith in healthy plants
come. That way our empty nest after Little Big Horn simply wanted to and animals to withstand epizootics. Faith
downsizes, and the young people can in earthworms to increase fertility. Faith
upsize in the main family farmhouse. in communities to function efficiently and
Sounds reasonable and environmentally honorably without centralized beltway
sensitive to me. But no, his little
honeymoon cottage — or our retirement
Demanding from on interference. Faith in Acres U.S.A. to
arrive every month with a cornucopia of
shack — had to be a 900-square-foot high that we irradiate all insight and information.
TajMahal. A state-of-the-art accredited Our culture’s current fear of
composting toilet to avoid the need for a food, register every cow bioterrorism shows the glaring weakness
septic system and sewer leach field was
denied. with government agen- of a centralized, immuno-deficient food
system. This weakness leads to fear.
When the hillside leach field would not
meet agronomic standards and we had to
cies, and hire more Demanding from on high that we irradiate
all food, register every cow with
install it in the floodplain, I asked the inspectors does not show government agencies, and hire more
health department bureaucrat why. He inspectors does not show strength. It
said that essentially the only approvable strength. It shows fear. shows fear.
leach fields now are alongside creeks and Indeed, official policy views all these
streams, because they are the only sites minority production and marketing
that offer dark-enough colored soils. systems that have been shown faithful
Sounds like real environmental steward- worship in their beloved Black Hills, use over the centuries to be instead things that
ship, doesn’t it? traditional medicinal herbs to cure threaten everyone and everything. As a
Look, if I want to build a yurt of rabbit diseases, educate their children in the teepee dwelling, herb healing, home edu-
skins and go to the bathroom in a compost ways of their ancestors, and live in cating, people loving, compost building
pile, why is it any of the government’s portable homes rather than log cabins. By retail farmer, I represent the real answers,
business? Bureaucrats bend over back- that time these people represented but real answers must be eradicated by
wards to accredit, tax credit, and offer absolutely no threat to the continued those who seek to build their power and
money to people wanting to build pig Westernization and domination of the fortunes on a lie — the lie being that
city-factories or bigger airports. But let a North American continent by people who genetic integrity can be maintained when
guy go to his woods, cut down some trees, educated, vocated, medicated, worshiped, corporate scientists begin splicing DNA.
and build himself a home, and a plethora and habitated differently. The lie that, as Charles Walters says, toxic
of regulatory tyrants descend on the But coexistence was out of the rescue chemistry is better than a balanced
project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, question. Just like the forces that biological bath. The lie that farms are
frustrate, and virtually terminate. I think succeeded in making it illegal for me to disease-prone, unfriendly, inhumane
it’s time to eradicate some of these laws use the “O” word, the Western success at places and should be zoned away from
and the piranhas who administer them. Wounded Knee quashed the little guy. people.
What does the Organic Trade Association Those of us who would aspire to opt
OPTING OUT OF THE SYSTEM have to fear from me using the “O” word? out — both consumers and producers —
I don’t ask for a dime of government If society really wants government must pray for enough cleverness to
money. I don’t ask for government certification, my little market share will circumvent the system until the system
accreditation. I don’t want to register my continue to deteriorate into oblivion. If, cannot sustain itself. Cycles happen.
animals with a global positioning tattoo. I however, the certification effort repre- Because things are this way today does
don’t want to tell officials the names of sents a same-old, same-old power grab by not mean they will be this way next year.
my constituents. And I sure as the dickens the elitists to exterminate the fringe play- Hurrah for that.
don’t intend to hand over my firearms. I Often, the greatest escapes occur at the
can’t even use the “U” word. moment the noose becomes tightest. I’m
On every side, our paternalistic culture Reprinted from feeling the rope, and it’s not very loose.
is tightening the noose around those of us Society seems bound and determined to
who just want to opt out of the system — hang me for everything I want to do. But
and it is the freedom to opt out that there’s power in truth. And for sure,
differentiates tyrannical and free societies. September 2003 • Vol. 33, No. 9 surprises are in store that may make
society shake its collective head and begin Joel Salatin raises grass-fed beef,
to question some seemingly unalterable pastured poultry, rabbits and more on a
doctrines. Doctrines like the model diversified farmstead, Polyface
righteousness of the bureaucrat. The Farm, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
sanctity of government research. The He is the author of Salad Bar Beef,
protection of the Food Safety and Pastured Poultry Profits, You Can Farm, Acres U.S.A. is the national journal of sustainable
agriculture, standing virtually alone with a real track
Inspection Service. The helpfulness of the and Family Friendly Farming, available record — over 30 years of continuous publication.
USDA. from Acres U.S.A. for $30 each, plus Eash issue is packed full of information eco-con-
When that day comes, you and I can shipping and handling. To order, call sultants regularly charge top dollar for. You’ll be
graciously offer our society honest food, 1-800-355-5313 or visit our website at kept up-to-date on all of the news that affects agri-
culture — regulations, discoveries, research
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