I'm familiar with Salatin's writing (and practices), and I think his argument would be that if you have face-to-face transactions with the producer (Salatin won't ship his meat, for example--you must come to the farm to pick it up), you don't need a certifier because you are holding the producer accountable, and you can require that his processes are transparent.
Certainly you can argue that someone should do this for you, but Salatin is trying to shift the paradigm of how we produce and consume food.
EDIT: Corrected the mis-spelling. Duh.
> Consumer Reports has a far better record than the FDA.
Maybe that's because Consumer Reports has the benefit of leveraging all the work already done by the FDA. Let me be clear, though, you may be right that privatizing such things could work. It's just that your evidence isn't necessarily compelling.
You're assuming the completely rational consumer, which does not exist.
Consumer Reports has a far better record than the FDA.
Of course, as you state, there would be disreputable certifying agencies too but I could avoid them and only use long-running agencies with a good reputation.