This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Jenna Ashley Robinson, campus outreach coordinator for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
There is a growing group of Americans who are environmentally conscious and express that consciousness in a love for the earth and a desire to grow, harvest, and sell agricultural (or other) products in a way that’s compatible with their beliefs. Some of them are proponents of the Slow Food movement, recently popularized in national magazines like Gourmet and Bon Appetit.
These environmentalists are, in some ways, very similar to global warming alarmists, PETA activists, and members in the Sierra Club; they love the earth and believe that it’s paramount to live harmoniously with nature. What’s different is the method by which these farmers and entrepreneurs pursue their vision. They want government regulations nowhere near their farms, processing plants, slaughterhouses, or roadside markets.
Joel Salatin raises grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, rabbits, and more on a model diversified farmstead, Polyface Farm, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. His philosophy of farming includes pastured livestock and poultry, local sales, natural earthworm soil stimulation, and mimicking natural patterns on a commercial domestic scale.
He is also passionate about freedom. In an article in Acres magazine, Salatin criticizes the “highly bureaucratic regulatory system” and its push to “eliminate freedom from the countryside.” In that article, titled “Everything I want to do is Illegal,” Salatin complains that on-farm processing, on-farm seminars, collaborative marketing, employing local “youngsters” and interns, and building a house the way he wants are all illegal because of various regulations. He cites government interference as the biggest deterrent to creating an environmentally conscious, sustainable farm compatible with his principles: “honest food, honest ecology, honest stewardship.”
In the article, Salatin explains, “I don’t ask for a dime of government money. I don’t ask for government accreditation. I don’t want to register my animals with a global positioning tattoo. I don’t want to tell officials the names of my constituents. And I sure as the dickens don’t intend to hand over my firearms.”
Other farmers are passionate about their milk. Dairy farmers in the “real milk” movement claim that “real milk” is not pasteurized, homogenized, or skimmed. And they want to sell this product to customers. According to the Campaign for Real Milk, “pasteurization laws favor large, industrialized dairy operations and squeeze out small farmers. When farmers have the right to sell unprocessed milk to consumers, they can make a decent living, even with small herds.” These farmers want to pursue their vision of small family farms, with herds comprising old-fashioned breeds of cows, allowed to graze on green pasture supplying real milk in a part of the “farm-to-table” movement. However, because of federal laws prohibiting the transport of raw milk over state lines – a power justified, say some, by the Constitution’s Commerce Clause – farmers are hamstrung. Moreover, sales of raw milk are illegal in 22 out of 50 U.S. states, including North Carolina.
These dairy farmers and real milk advocates turned to a champion of free markets — not the environment — to pursue their cause; in November of 2007, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced “HR 4077 to Allow the Interstate Shipment of Unpasteurized Milk.”
Whole Foods is another example of how markets, not government, can help people achieve their environmental goals. Whole Foods is highly selective about what it sells, committed to “sustainable” agriculture, and dedicated to stringent quality standards. The company has even created its own guidelines for animal welfare, absent any kind of government mandate to do so. In fact, Whole Foods was the first grocery chain to set standards for humane animal treatment.
Whole Foods embodies many environmentalists’ visions for the future: “a virtuous circle entwining the food chain, human beings, and Mother Earth: each is reliant upon the others through a beautiful and delicate symbiosis.” And it accomplishes these aims via the free market. John P. Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, understands that principle. In a debate in Reason Magazine among Mackey, Milton Friedman, and T.J. Rodgers, Mackey described himself as a free-market libertarian. He also happens to be a vegan, animal lover, and environmentalist.
It is people and projects like these that prove that markets and environmental concerns are not incompatible. Individuals, not governments, are the best stewards of their land, food, health, and environment.