5 Farm-to-Table Casualties

A week after Cultivate, I visit Polyface Farms in Swoope, Virginia, a three-hour drive from Washington, D.C. Polyface, which has been a Chipotle pork supplier since 2007, is one of the places that gives credence to Chipotle slogans like “Family Farmed” on T-shirts at Cultivate.

Past winding roads and a small bridge, I find owner Joel Salatin, arguably the world expert when it comes to responsibly sourcing pork (his latest book, published just four days earlier, is titled The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs), lugging planks of wood across a green field. He’s dressed in a felt outback hat, collared shirt, Wrangler jeans, and muddy boots, with suspenders tucking in a slight belly. I ask if I’m interrupting his work. “Not a beat!” he says with a wide grin and a high-pitched chuckle I’ll hear again and again.

We pile into his pickup truck and putter around