It’s been 10 years since Michael Pollan wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a book that many would say shifted the local food movement into the limelight. Pollan wrote a recent article in the Washington Post in which he discusses the major advances in the local food movement.

In particular, he mentions there are now 8,000 farmers markets in the U.S. which is a 180% increase since 2006. There are also more than 4,000 school districts that have farm-to-school programs (a 430% increase since 2006). And looking at how all this interest in local food has influenced the food industry, we see that soda sales have dropped by 14% since 2004 and there has been an effort to make some of the more mainstream food healthier by removing processed food ingredients like high fructose corn syrup. Another telling statistic is that sales of organic food has doubled since 2006. The food industry is a whole new game.

One of the all-stars that emerged from that book was Holistic Management practitioner, Joel Salatin, who has become a celebrity farmer since The Omnivore’s Dilemma took off at the shelves. In fact, Pollan is one of the people interviewed for the new Polyface documentary about the Salatin farm.

More people involved in the local food movement realize that we need more farmers and ranchers like Joel, who can make a good living, grow healthy food, and care for the land. If you are interested in learning more about the connection between healthy land, food, and lives and would like to hear Joel speak, come to HMI’s 2016 International Gathering at Paicines, California on October 14-16, 2016.