The Quarantine Buy Fresh Buy Local Film Series – Farmageddon

“Good food production should be aesthetically and aromatically sensually romantic!!”

Joel Salatin

For Virginia livestock farmer Joel Salatin, farming isn’t just a means of producing food and making a living, it’s a way to connect to your food that is an inherent part of the human experience. Salatin raises the animals on his farm using sustainable methods based on the natural patterns of animals living in the wild, and he sells all his products within a 4-hour-drive of his farm.

Salatin, and thousands of other farmers like him in the United States, maintains a commitment to farming sustainably and selling locally, but doing so is often far from easy. On top of addressing all the inherent challenges of running a small farm, like managing sales and dealing with changes in the weather, farmers must navigate through an extensive maze of state and federal regulations surrounding the sale of food products. These regulations are often tailored towards large, factory farming operations and as a result often leave small farms struggling just to stay afloat.

Kristin Canty’s documentary “Farmageddon” outlines some of the struggles that government regulations create for small farmers with interviews of farmers like Salatin who have navigated these regulations first-hand. The film is a great reminder to consumers that small farms often lead the healthiest outcomes, both for our bodies and our planet, and that the best way we can support sustainable farming is to continue to buy our food from local producers.