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Joel Salatin (left front) and family at Polyface Farm in Staunton

Joel Salatin, the self-described lunatic Virginia farmer made famous in Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma," railed against the "chicken police" and other obstacles put in the way of local food production by government and the industrial agricultural lobby at The Lyric Theater in Blacksburg this afternoon.

About 150 people attended the event, which kicked off the annual Sustainable Blacksburg celebration. The week of environmental education events is sponsored by Virginia Tech, Blacksburg and the nonprofit Sustainable Blacksburg. Salatin's talk was followed by a "local foods" dinner at the Dietrick Dining Hall on the Tech campus. The meal featured some of Salatin's pasture-raised beef.

Salatin railed against increasing governmental regulations that push up the costs of locally-grown food from small and family farms and make it more difficult for them to compete with industrial agricultural companies.

He also described his philosophy of farming and detailed some of the sustainable practices he uses on his farms located near Staunton, including his "pasture sanitation program."

Based on the tendency of birds to follow herds of grazing animals in the wild, Salatin showed how he rotates his cattle and chickens through the same fields. The cows graze and leave their manure, then are moved to another pasture. One the heels of the cows come the chickens, which scratch across the field, eating the parasites and other pests left by the cows. In this way, the cow manure is evenly distributed to keep the pasture fertilized without added chemicals, Salatin said.

Industrial farmers spend money spraying their fields to kill parasites and innoculating their cows with antibiotics to keep them healthy. Meanwhile, Salatin said he cleans his fields naturally and the chickens reward him with thousands of eggs.

In addressing the question of affordability of meat and produce from smaller, local farms, Saladin talked passionately about what he called the "hidden costs" of industrial farming -- the fossil fuel required to ship food thousands of miles, pollution caused by large-scale, chemical dependent farming and animal processing, and food-related diseases such as diabetes and obesity, all caused Salatin said, by overprocessed, underpriced food.

"The question is, can we afford what we've been doing?" he said.

For a list of upcoming Sustainability Week events for Oct. 21-25, click here.

-- Tonia Moxley