Joel Salatin is coming to Chico!

CHAFFIN FAMILY ORCHARDS

Joel Salatin speaking in Chico

Joel Salatin Speaking in Chico, CA

About The Power of Local Food

Come hear Worldfamous Sustainable Farmer & International Speaker from Polyface Farms who was featured in
Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, Academy Award Nominated Food Inc., and FRESH The Movie

Joel Salatin will be travelling through northern California in a couple weeks. Since he will be in the area we were able to book him for a speaking event in Chico. As his popularity grows it's becoming no small task to find a time when he's available to speak. We are thrilled and honored that we'll be able to sponsor him to come to Chico and speak to our community about alternative agriculture and The Power of Local Food.

Joel Salatin Speaking Joel Salatin is an extremely well educated but light hearted and humorous speaker. He makes the power and mystery behind food and farming come to life for eaters of all walks of life. His ability to communicate the importance of traditional foods, clean grass based farming, and local foods is amazing. You will be entertained and your heart will be touched. He is a master at empowering individuals to move mountains and make real change in their communities. So we're hoping you and your friends will join us on January 17th at the Masonic Family Center in Chico. The doors open at 5:30pm. And be sure to pass the word along, especially if you know people who don't seem to understand the value of wholesome, nutrient-dense, local food; Joel is excellent at getting people passionate about it. For tickets go to http://chaffinorchards.eventbrite.com/

Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms

If you're unfamiliar with who Joel Salatin is, his farm was featured in Michael Pollan's bestselling book Omnivore's Dilemma as the example of the ideal pastoral based farming model. Though Joel has long been a rolemodel among alternative farmers with a very popular series of farming books, he has since become a bit of a superstar to mainstream America. His farm was showcased last year in the film Food Inc. which went on to be an Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary. He was also featured in the wildly popular and uplifting film FRESH The Movie which we showed at our Butte Valley Weston Price Chapter meeting last summer.

Chaffin Orchards and Joel's operation Polyface Farms are both modeled on very strong but simple principles. The first and foremost is a foundation based on Permaculture fundamentals meaning that we don't toil each year with annual plantings but rather invest in a perennial system that is self-replicating and long lasting. We couple that with a non-toxic approach to farming though neither our farm nor Polyface are "certified" organic for a wide variety of reasons. We also both believe in projects that utilize synergy and enhance one another. I've written many times about how we at Chaffin employ our livestock in our orchards to accomplish desired land management goals such as mowing, weed abatement, pruning, and pest control. Joel, who is from a drastically different climate than ours, focuses more on utilizing and stacking livestock enterprises that enhance one another.

Joel Salatin Polyface Farms with layers and guardian dog Polyface's website reports that they currently are raising approximately 6,500 laying hens, 24,000 broiler birds, 1,000 head of cattle, 200 hogs, 500 turkeys, and 250 rabbits annually. All are raised in open pastures with virtually no outside inputs brought in off the farm. The animals all exhibit excellent health and do not require routine antiobiotics like their feedlot counterparts. And their farm is thriving under this system while they are literally watching the top soil get deeper and the farm fertility grow each year.

Polyface and Chaffin Orchards are both farms that started about 100 years ago by very forward-thinking individual's with conservation principles in mind. Joel's father and Carol's grandfather Del Chaffin both had a strong understanding of nature and an almost instinctive knowledge on how to interact with the land leaving the least impact but rather enhancing the property for both the environment and the local community.

Do not miss this opportunity to come see Joel Salatin speak. His popularity only continues to grow internationally and we don't know when he will again be in northern California with availability to give a lecture. In addition we worked extremely hard to make sure tickets would be as affordable as possible. I've seen Joel speak dozens of times and always paid $50 to $100 on each occasion. We were able to host him and get ticket costs for this event down to only $14 each!!!! We are fully expecting to sell out so get your tickets now.