John Kempf talks with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms about how farmers can communicate better, navigate organic certification, and understand people who disagree with them on agricultural practices.
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Hi, friends. Welcome back to the Regenerative Agriculture podcast. Today, I'm delighted and honored to have Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Virginia here with us. Joel Salatin is a voice and a name that scarcely needs an introduction. He has been a voice of inspiration to very many. Joel, thank you for being here, for sharing your wisdom and your inspiration as widely as you have over the years. One of the questions that I was asked to ask you is one of your strengths is that you're very articulate and able to describe your ideas and positions well to other people. How can other farmers learn that skill?
Generally, if a farmer is filling out a job description, nowhere on that job description will it say storytelling ability or communication skills. You know, it'll be things like managing animals or keeping good records, being able to repair things. Seldom do you see communication on there. And so I've been blessed. When I was through school, you know, competing in forensics and debate, theater, drama, I was always in the school plays and especially the debate team, and learning to communicate and speak. I mean, clearly I have a gift for that, but it's a gift that's been honed. And I think this is what's important, is that you may not become the most gifted orator, but you can develop at least some rudimentary skills, whether you take a couple of writing courses or join the local theater group. There's the international speakers nonprofit called Toastmasters, and their whole deal is there are local chapters all over the country, Toastmasters. And what they do is they teach communication and speaking skills, and you do little short vignettes, different kinds of little talks. People critique you, and you work at it. The truth is that people who learn to communicate in any field become the pacesetters, kind of the leaders in that field. You don't have to be the best, but if you can tell the story the best, you'll be considered an expert. You'll have an audience. People don't know. I practice speeches in front of a mirror. I give them to myself in the mirror. And you practice your timing and you practice your words. And then I read a lot. Farmers tend to not be readers, and I would encourage just immersing yourself in a broad range of things. Keep up on current events. Read the old philosophy. Read everything from Malabar Farm and Lewis Bromfield, Ed Faulkner and Plowman Spolley and Wendell Berry and. And immerse yourself in the language of. I mean, I'm not encouraging people to read Norman Borlaug literature, but know who the players are, and people who know stuff. History, current events, signs of the times, trends. People who know stuff make interesting conversationalists. I'm a voracious reader, an eclectic reader. I read everything from business to philosophy to religion to whatever, marketing, self help, whatever. Read things that I don't agree with because you need to understand what other people are thinking, get in their heads so you know better how to articulate. These are all things that you can do to cultivate your own awareness and interestingness. And as you cultivate that, you'll become someone people enjoy conversing with and listening to, simply because you'll be able to have a better grasp of the subject matter.
I seem to recall somewhere in one of your books you wrote that, I think the topic was on organic certification in general. You wrote that rather than certifying the process that a farm uses, perhaps we should begin certifying their bookshelf.
Yes, I've said that more times than once. Unfortunately, organics, government, organic certification at least has become a bit of a little checklist of do's and don'ts. We understand that it's more than just a list of do's and don'ts. It's an embrace of a worldview, of a way we view life and the way the world works. I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about basic ecological function. The deep soils on the planet were not built with 10-10-10 chemical fertilizer. They were built with carbon, solar, real time solar energy converted to carbon and vegetation that rots or is eaten and manured in place. These are the great principles. And it's a mindset. It's a worldview. And yeah, I have said numerous times I what we ought to be looking for is what's on the magazine rack behind the toilet and what's on the bookshelf that actually indicates where a person's mind is. Because where your mind, where your mental treasure is, that's where your heart will be.
You mentioned that you read books that you don't agree with. And something I've been thinking about recently, there's this quote from not Warren Buffett, but his business partner, Charlie Munger. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but essentially he's saying you're not qualified to have an opinion until you can articulate the opposing viewpoint better than the opposition. I think if we followed that perspective, there would be a lot fewer opinions in the world, most likely.
Yes, that's true. And you know, on that point, if I may swerve just a bit to this, this is one reason why I don't picket McDonald's or write nasty letters about making GMOs illegal or closing down Monsanto or any of these other efforts. Because I, unlike many of the folk my friends in this ecology movement, I think that the people who disagree with us are not evil intended. I think they are misguided, I think they're ignorant and I think they're wrong. But to denigrate the folks who work at Monsanto as evil intended is a very different situation. My neighbor here in Swope, physical neighbor, is the mid Atlantic sales rep for Monsanto. We couldn't be more divergent in how we view the way food and farming and ecology function in the living dynamics of the soil and plant community. But he really believes, he's a good person. He really believes that he is feeding the world, saving the planet from whatever stupidity and starvation and famine. And you have to honor that. As soon as you assume that these big bad corporations are. And the people who run them, the people who make glyphosate or whatever, they are ogres and evil intended, and you conceive of them in your mind as some sort of a devil or a demon, you suddenly a shut yourself off from ever making a bridge with them. And number two, you actually hurt your own ability to step into the marketplace of ideas with something that's helpful because it prejudices your mind and your thinking. You've now prejudged them in their intent. We can talk about effect all day, and that's what I do. But I never assume that even people I disagree with vehemently in politics, for example, I always assume that they're good intended. And I thank debate for this. Because in high school and college, interscholastic and intercollegiate debate, I have a room full of trophies on this. I wasn't ashamed.
