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September 25, 2025Why Not Nuts and Savannahs?
Michael Olson’s Food Chain Radio Show #1399
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Guest: Elspeth Hay, Author, Feed Us With Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food
Michael Olson – Food Chain Radio: Why Not Nuts and Savannahs? If we can reclaim savannas, can we also build a food chain on trees and nuts?
A few years ago I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with Joel and Teresa Salatin at their Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. While showing me about the many interesting features of Polyface, Joel said, “Would you like to see the ‘pigevators’ in action?”
Who could pass up an opportunity to see pigevators in action?
Joel drove us to the top of his holding and into a forest. We stepped out of the truck and followed a trail into the woods, where we quickly began hearing the snorts and grunts of pigevators in action. There they were, a dozen or so of the mighty beasts confined by an electric tape doing what pigs do best – tearing up the ground in search of anything edible.
Joel said, “This land was once a rich savannah that provided ample fodder for grazing animals, both wild and domestic. During and after the Civil War, the grazing animals disappeared, the shrubs and pines took over, and the forest became unusable.”
“These pigevators,” Joel said, “are turning the forest back into savanna!”
What happened to Polyface so many years ago, happened to so much of America. When the grazers were taken off the grass, the land became covered in weeds, brush, shrubs and trees. We see the consequence of this loss of savanna in the raging fires of the West.
This leads me to ask: If we can reclaim savannas, can we also build a food chain on trees and nuts?
Leave a comment below: Have you ever eaten an acorn?
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Michael Olson’s Three Laws of the Food Chain
#1 Agriculture is the foundation upon which we build all our sand castles.
#2 The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in that food.
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