Slaughterhouse-Five

Written to Bridge School Concerts, Vol. 1 by Various Artists

Makenna Goodman: In your opinion, what's the biggest problem with the food industry in the U.S.?

Joel Salatin: Wow, where do I start? Number one is that it destroys soil. Absolutely and completely. The soil is the only thread upon which civilization can exist, and it's such a narrow strip around the globe if a person could ever realize that our existence depends on literally inches of active aerobic microbial life on terra firma, we might begin to appreciate the ecological umbilical to which we are all still attached. The food industry, I'm convinced, actually believes we don't need soil to live. That we are more clever than that.

This week was dominated by two milestone events:

1. The holding of a joint, introductory training course in organic/biodynamic farming, led by Ana Maria Claro Paredes Silva, Méd. Veterinária, Instituto Oikos de Agroecologia, at Fazenda Santa Helena, Emmanuel and Filipa's hotel fazenda.
2. The slaughtering at Fazenda Alfheim of five piglets for commercial consumption (samples for a high-end São Paulo restaurant), led by Emmanuel's chef extraordinaire, Humberto Guimaraes, aka Beto.
   

On Wednesday, Lone departed Alfheim with Clair and Rosana at 06:30, picked up Direli in Vargem Grande (his house at Alfheim is an Elektro connection shy of being ready) and arrived at Fazenda Santa Helena at approx. 08:00. After meeting Ana Maria and their farm's traditional veterinarian, Milka Matos Bado Villani, who we know well from her work with our dogs, and who was keen to participate in the training day, the teams were introduced and Lone left to carry out sundry duties in nearby São Luiz do Paraitinga. I drew the short straw and stayed behind to take care of the daily chores at Alfheim. Our non-participation was by design. We wanted to allow our personnel to raise questions and concerns with Ana Maria unencumbered by the presence of the bosses. Ana Maria's approach was quite clever: she started by referencing the approach to farming taken by the previous generation, i.e. the parents of our respective employees. How they were able to grow almost all of their own food. How they used no fossil fuel-based fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. How their soil was naturally healthy. How they collected their own seeds. Etc.

Ana Maria then contrasted these practices with how much today's rural population has to purchase in stores, the intensive use of fossil-fuel-based inputs (out of necessity rather than choice), et depletion of the soil and how most small farmers have to purchase their seeds because the hybrid varieties sold by the likes of Cargill and Monsanto cannot be saved and re-used the following season. In effect, the large agro-industrial giants have succeeded in turning seeds into the equivalent of disposable diapers or contact lens. As an aside, in high school and at university, I used the same pair of hard contact lenses for almost 10 years, only replacing them when I actually lost them! Today, I would need to build extra storage space in my bathroom to house even a month's supply of disposable contact lenses. Clearly, this is the dream of every consumer goods company: convert a one-time purchase into a recurring revenue, but as it relates to seeds the idea is abhorrent. A hybrid seed which cannot be saved is akin to a disposable wrist watch on which the time can only be read once.

According to Lone, who participated in this introductory session, the effect was very powerful. After that, the two teams, plus Alena, went on their walkabout.

Ana Maria's feedback as regards our employees was quite favorable: they appear to buy in to the organic approach and they are positive and open. In short, they have turned the corner.

Lone returned at the end of the day, playing the part of taxi chauffeur, first dropping Dirlei off in Vargem Grande and then ferrying Clair, Rosana and Alena back to Fazenda Alfheim.

Thursday was an equally inspiring day. With the help of Beto, who arrived at Fazenda Alfheim just after 09:00, and Dirlei, who it turns out has quite a bit of experience slaughtering piglets, we took the plunge into packaging our product. We started by catching five suitably large piglets, approx. 10-15 kg, and placing them in sacks, which we then placed in the shade under a tree. One by one, we killed, cleaned and butchered each piglet. We decided to produce a variety of samples for the first of the two upscale São Paulo restaurants which have expressed an interest in our leitões orgânicas. To facilitate the packaging of these samples, I had purchased a vacuum sealer from the Polishop store in Shopping Eldorado on my last visit to São Paulo, and we used this pillar of the TV shopping world to protect our valuable pork…very professional. I delivered the first of these samples, three piglets in all, halved, quartered and cut in sixths, on Sunday. Today, Tuesday, I will taste these samples together with the owner of the restaurant, an icon in the São Paulo restaurant world.

The remaining two piglets were divided between Clair and Rosana and Dirlei, half each, and Beto and us, again half each. Dirlei stopped at the market in Vargem Grande and weighed his half as we were all quite curious about the weight of the final product. Five kg without the head…probably 12 kg cleaned…a nice size in my opinion. The meat looks exquisite: firm and extremely lean. One can clearly see the difference between free-range and confined swine.

The day's other important takeaway were the lessons learned in terms of how we should build our open-air slaughterhouse:

• Construct a holding pen next to the slaughterhouse so the animals can roam freely pre-slaughter. When kept in sacks, even in the shade, some of the piglets flap about to such an extent that they end up damaging their skin.
• Construct a small, wood-burning stove to heat water, which is used to remove the piglet's hair. On this occasion we used the farm's extra stove, but it is neither effective or cost-effective out of door.
• Purchase insect-free netting, which can be placed around the piglets while they are hanging post-butchering.
• Purchase a stainless steel table to eliminate bacteria buildup.
• Purchase a top-of-the-line butchering set.
• Purchase a blow-torch to singe the hard-to-remove hair (this time around we entrusted this task to a couple of disposable Gillete razors).
  

Finally, in other far-related news:

• What Lone now refers to as my Lego tractor arrived on Friday.
• Clair finished cleaning pasture 5 (1, 2, 3, 4).
• The Head Witch of Eastwick spread he first locally-produced Horn Manure Preparation (500).
• The frogs they are a breeding.
• And Baixinho, one of the Saturday day laborers, began clearing our lagoa. Baixinho promised to return next Saturday with a team of three-four day laborers, so I expect that we will be discussing fish vs. ducks in two weeks time.