Salatin coming to Jackson Heights

Can the Jackson Heights school district utilize some of its land to produce food for its students and staff?

Virginia-based farmer and author Joel Salatin will visit the district on Thursday, May 8 to give students and staff insights on how to answer that question.

Salatin’s visit is not just a student-related event, however, as area farmers and Jackson Heights district families are invited to listen in on Salatin’s presentation to seventh through 12th-grade students, scheduled from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. that day in the Jackson Heights High School gym.

Admission is $10 for “Cobra families” and $20 for the general public, while those 17 and under will be admitted free, according to Jessica Andriacco, sixth-grade science teacher at Jackson Heights.

“We are super excited to bring Joel Salatin to our community to talk to our students about the next generation of farming,” Andriacco told members of the USD 335 Board of Education earlier this month. “He is a very well-known farmer who works in organic and sustainably regenerative farming processes.”

Renowned for his work with his family in regenerative farming at his Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Salatin — who considers himself a “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer” — emphasizes sustainable farming and has authored more than 15 books drawing from his experiences as a farmer.

To read the rest of the article, please subscribe to The Holton Recorder.