A recent interview with Joel Salatin (of The Omnivores Dilemma and Food, Inc. fame) about farming, food, tolerance, sustainability and how to relax was posted on treehugger.com. If you can put aside the stigma associated with the website's name, this is an amazing piece.
Joel is truly an inspiring figure. He writes and speaks with an eloquence, conviction, and clarity of thought rare amongst scholars, let alone farmers. Some of his ideals are pushing the utopian, but he is unapologetic and believes deeply in his purpose.
Regarding what is wrong with the food industry, his assessment boils down to four things: soil, hubris, safety and respect. The following excerpts highlight each:
"The soil is the only thread upon which civilization can exist, and it's such a narrow strip around the globe if a person could ever realize that our existence depends on literally inches of active aerobic microbial life on terra firma, we might begin to appreciate the ecological umbilical to which we are all still attached. The food industry, I'm convinced, actually believes we don't need soil to live. That we are more clever than that."
"The food industry views everything through the skewed paradigm of faith in human cleverness rather than dependence on nature's design"
"The food industry actually believes that feeding your children Twinkies, Cocoa Puffs and Mountain Dew is safe, but drinking raw milk and eating compost-grown tomatoes is dangerous"
"...a culture that views its life from such an arrogant, manipulative, disrespectful hubris, will view its own citizenry the same way--and other cultures"
Please, read the rest here
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