MILITANTISME

Joel est une personne atypique et une force de la nature, un exemple d'un pionnier qui de presque rien a construit une belle entreprise profitable sans quelconque aide financière. Il défend avec ferveur le monde agricole et son importance en inspirant les jeunes agriculteurs à changer leur regard sur la fonction agraire.

«Nous devons arrêter cette mentalité incessante de victime où quelqu'un d'autre devra réparer ce qui a été détruit, ou quelqu'un d'autre doive me rendre heureux ou que je doive ma santé à quelqu'un d'autre. Tout ceci est de notre responsabilité, pas de celle du voisin ou du gouvernement, de l'église ou autre.»

Il est également l'auteur de neuf livres, y compris les bestseller Folks, this Aint Normal, You Can Farm et Salad Bar Beef. Joel écrit aussi abondamment dans des magazines comme Stockman Grass Farmer, Acres USA, et American Agriculture. ( sources: Agriculture de conservation et Mycélium )»

Il signe en 2015 la préface de «La ferme impossible», disponible dans sa version originale anglaise ci-dessous.

PRÉFACE ORIGINALE ANGLAISE DE JOEL SALATIN POUR LA FERME IMPOSSIBLE

3 mars 2015

FOREWORD FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE FARM

While Quebec's food system may be farther along the continuum toward tyranny than most in the
world, its horrors exist in more countries than not, mostly developed countries. As I travel the world
speaking to integrity food producers desperate to access their neighborhood customers, the stories
of government antagonism multiply each year.

What fascinating opposing trends: local food vs. food extortion. Both sides are growing. And is
extortion too hard a word? What else would you call it when a small land holder, a peasant in historical
terms, humbly seeks to sell some excess production to the cobbler or the hat-maker next door but is
summarily denied?

Such heavy-handed tyranny begs the question: by what authority should anyone be allowed to
deny a peasant the freedom to engage in voluntary commerce with a neighbor who desires his excess
production? That Quebec most egregiously and other countries less so interfere in such a communal
commerce, a voluntary democratic process, should make any freedom-loving person quake in his shoes.

If a gun-wielding agent of the government can come between something as basic to human interaction
as trading eggs or milk, other freedoms are surely in jeopardy. The freedom to practice personal religion,
or speech, or assembly certainly are as basic as the freedom to grow some chickens and sell their eggs.

Legalized extortion is no less wrong or intimidating. The marketing boards in Canada generally, and
Quebec's additional boards specifically, act as legalized thugs to protect the insiders from innovation.
Tragically, such a system enslaves the entire food system in an outdated, inefficient, nutrient-deficient
industrialized paradigm. Citizens in Quebec deserve a food emancipation proclamation to release the
latent entrepreneurial integrity food system in their communities. Doing so would not only be an economic
boon, it would offer higher quality food and far more of it at more affordable prices for Quebeckians.

The hardest part of arguing for food choice and food freedom is trying to paint a picture of what could
be. With supermarkets bulging and micro-wavable fare neatly plastic-wrapped in abundance, many
people don't believe that any food is being denied them. But it is, and in vast quantities. From raw milk
to home-made noodles and quiche, many industrial items on the supermarket shelf have an integrity
counterpart. One that builds soil, that respects animals, that contains only pronounceable ingredients.
Those foods exist, but they usually don't pass government/industrial sanction.

I don't know when I've seen a more articulate, clear presentation of the conundrum facing both
small farmers and conscientious consumers as Dominic lays out in this wonderful book. This is a call to
action; indeed a call to revolution. It is a call to participate in freedom. Liberty is not just something
relegated to academic focus groups and political posturing. Liberty is something you taste, see, smell,
and feel. And it must be acted on to be kept.

Anyone who cares about a thriving integrity food system in Quebec needs to read this book, digest
its profound data and ideas, and then act with purpose and conviction. Our grandchildren are depending
on us to do that, and we dare not let them down. Prepare to be radicalized.

Joel Salatin
Farmer, Author, Local Food Advocate
Co-owner of Polyface Farm, Swoope, Virginia