I'm sorry, Joel. I couldn't finish this. Heck, I could barely get into it.

This actually IS a good primer on the war in the countryside that's being waged between local producers and government. If you can get past the tone: Joel alternates between teacher, preachy and screechy.

Make no mistake: there IS a war being fought over food production and the deck is stacked in favour of large producers, feed lot cattle, battery cage chickens and massive hog operations. You'd think that properly cared for, healthy feed animals would be a no-brainer. But, in a lot of cases, it's either prohibitively expensive, ridiculously difficult or simply illegal to sell you the healthy, quality food that you need.

Joel is a pioneer in the local food movement and I support everything he does. I just couldn't read this book. Mainly because I'm well aware of everything he talks about. That said, for someone just getting interested in the subject, it's worth wading through. ( )

Preachy, poorly written. ( )

The title of this book can be off putting, but the material is excellent. It is a discussion of the constant and pervasive intrusion of government into our lives, with particular focus on how it affects local farmers.

What is illustrated quite clearly is that any threat or nuisance is used as an excuse to clamp down and build distrust of our food sources, especially those produced by local sources, which (with a little thought and reasoning) are the most likely to be very safe. The local farmers reputation is on the line for everything they do, and especially when they are accused of something - the public will assume the worst, even when the facts are on their side.

As Salatin says, many of the bureaucrats assume that they are preventing all sorts of mischief. I tend to agree with Salatin's assertions that local grown food methods are proven over millennia, and if they were unsafe, they would have killed us off long ago.

Our technological innovations have led us to the false belief that everything is better with complexity and mechanization.

Salatin gives us many suggestions of what we can do to encourage local grown food which will be safer, more nutritious, humane to animals, and a great economic development.

This book has changed the way I view my own food consumption, and the way I look at the agrarian industries and local farmers. ( )

Okay, ignore the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, etc, and this is a really good book. The ideas pertaining strictly to agriculture are wonderful. If I could rewrite it to get rid of the former list of issues, it would be my bible. As such, the notes I took will have to do. ( )

Preachy, poorly written. ( )