PITTSBORO — Virginia alternative farmer and agricultural writer Joel Salatin shares his expertise in environmental and consumer-friendly farming at a June 30 public forum at Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham County Campus.

Salatin is a sought-after conference speaker, bringing knowledge, experience and humor to his message of environmentally friendly farming and the importance of local food systems.

His topic will be “Local Food to the Rescue.” Salatin's Polyface Farm, in the Shenandoah Valley, demonstrates the potential for local food production and distribution systems to help solve the challenges of biosecurity, food-borne pathogens, energy, integrity, and humane husbandry. He challenges people to rediscover their kitchens, relearn culinary skills and eat seasonally. 

The forum is sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, and the college’s Natural Chef and Sustainable Agriculture programs at the Chatham Campus, 764 West St., Pittsboro. 

The event starts at 5:30 p.m. with a tour of the Student Farm. Refreshments will be served in the Multi-Purpose Room in Building 2 at 6:30 p.m., and Salatin will speak at 7 p.m. Admission is free.

The Salatin family farm, Polyface Inc. (“The Farm of Many Faces”), has been featured in magazines such as Smithsonian, National Geographic, and Gourmet. Salatin has been profiled on ABC World News in its “Lives of the 21st Century” series. He is the author of several books, including, You Can Farm, Pastured Poultry Profits, and Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal.  Salatin's writings on farming also appear in magazines such as Stockman Grass Farmer, Acres USA, and American Agriculturalist.

 

In 1961, Salatin’s parents, William and Lucille Salatin, moved their family to a worn-out, eroded farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Through environmentally friendly farming methods, they transformed it into one that the Polyface web site (www.polyfacefarms.com) describes as, “America’s premier non-industrial food production oasis.” Salatin has continued and expanded the work started by his parents.

The farm’s mission, according to the Web site, is “to develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.”

Polyface currently services more than 3,000 families, 10 retail outlets, and 50 restaurants with meat, eggs and lumber through on-farm sales and metropolitan buying clubs.

 

For more information about Salatin’s appearance at Central Carolina C.C., call the Chatham Campus at (919) 542-6495. For more information on CCCC’s agriculture and Natural Chef programs, visit www.cccc.edu/naturalchef or www.cccc.edu/sustainableag.