Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
FROM THE ARCHIVE (2022): References to current events, governmental administrations, or public policies may not reflect present-day circumstances.
Building your own chicken farm can be as cheap and easy as cancelling your Netflix subscription. At least that’s what Joel Salatin thinks, in this 2022 speech brought back from the archive. Learn as Salatin makes the argument that a better way of farming and consuming food is out there, and he’s living it right now.
Visit our full library of content at https://freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu/home
“Local Food as Parallel Agriculture”
Joel Salatin
Polyface Farms
This speech was delivered in the Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Auditorium at Hillsdale College on November 15, 2022, during a Hillsdale College CCA Seminar, “Parallel Economies”
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Timecodes:
0:00 – Trailer
1:12 – How Self-Sufficient Farms Survived Global Shocks
4:31 – Cheap Food vs. Precious Food
7:23 – Why Food Quality Has Declined Since 1940
9:41 – From Integrated Farms to Segregated Food Systems
13:21 – Why Decentralized Farming Feeds More People
16:27 – Mechanical vs. Biological Views of Life
19:51 – How Opaque Food Systems Breed Fear and Regulation
23:03 – Chemical Fertilizer vs. Carbon-Based Soil Health
27:25 – Why Health, Not Sickness, Should Drive Farming
30:33 – Exploitive Farming vs. Nurturing the Land
33:05 – Tyranny vs. Liberty in Food Policy
Support Hillsdale College: https://secured.hillsdale.edu/hillsdale/support-hillsdale-college
Visit our website: http://hillsdale.edu
Learn from our online courses: http://online.hillsdale.edu
Read Imprimis: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/
Undergraduate programs: https://www.hillsdale.edu/information-for/undergraduate-admissions/
Graduate School of Statesmanship: https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/graduate-school/
Graduate School of Government: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/School-of-Government/Program-Overview/
Graduate School of Education: https://classicalgrad.hillsdale.edu/
Listen to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network: https://podcast.hillsdale.edu/
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Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.
The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.
By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.
FROM THE ARCHIVE (2022): References to current events, governmental administrations, or public policies may not reflect present-day circumstances.
Building your own chicken farm can be as cheap and easy as cancelling your Netflix subscription. At least that’s what Joel Salatin thinks, in this 2022 speech brought back from the archive. Learn as Salatin makes the argument that a better way of farming and consuming food is out there, and he’s living it right now.
Visit our full library of content at https://freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu/home
“Local Food as Parallel Agriculture”
Joel Salatin
Polyface Farms
This speech was delivered in the Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Auditorium at Hillsdale College on November 15, 2022, during a Hillsdale College CCA Seminar, “Parallel Economies”
------------------------------
Timecodes:
0:00 – Trailer
1:12 – How Self-Sufficient Farms Survived Global Shocks
4:31 – Cheap Food vs. Precious Food
7:23 – Why Food Quality Has Declined Since 1940
9:41 – From Integrated Farms to Segregated Food Systems
13:21 – Why Decentralized Farming Feeds More People
16:27 – Mechanical vs. Biological Views of Life
19:51 – How Opaque Food Systems Breed Fear and Regulation
23:03 – Chemical Fertilizer vs. Carbon-Based Soil Health
27:25 – Why Health, Not Sickness, Should Drive Farming
30:33 – Exploitive Farming vs. Nurturing the Land
33:05 – Tyranny vs. Liberty in Food Policy
Support Hillsdale College: https://secured.hillsdale.edu/hillsdale/support-hillsdale-college
Visit our website: http://hillsdale.edu
Learn from our online courses: http://online.hillsdale.edu
Read Imprimis: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/
Undergraduate programs: https://www.hillsdale.edu/information-for/undergraduate-admissions/
Graduate School of Statesmanship: https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/graduate-school/
Graduate School of Government: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/School-of-Government/Program-Overview/
Graduate School of Education: https://classicalgrad.hillsdale.edu/
Listen to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network: https://podcast.hillsdale.edu/
------------------------------
Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.
The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.
By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.
