Hey Friends,
I’m going to jump in the mud here today and maybe start slinging it. 🐗Here it goes.
The food system in America is messed up. And one of the places this shows up the clearest is in conventional pork production.
Today, if you stop by the grocery store, the pork you buy will most likely come from one of four major packers. Smithfield, JBS, Cargill, and Tyson. These are vertically integrated pork producers, meaning they contract with farmers to raise their hogs. The company provides the feed and piglets. The farmer provides the barns and the labor.
It’s big money for the packer, and a modern version of serfdom for the farmer. The company controls nearly all aspects of production. The farmer does what he is told and carries the financial burden.
The situation is even more bleak for the pigs themselves.
Now I must confess, I have never visited a commercial hog farm. For one thing, we don’t have any locally. And secondly, they have strict biosecurity rules. No visitors. So I can’t speak from personal experience. But the reports I hear, and the descriptions given to me, are believable and upsetting.
In most cases, feeder pigs are raised on slatted floors, where their manure falls through into pits below the barn. Ammonia rises from those pits, burning the respiratory tracts of the animals and the farmers, and contributing to pollution outside. To be certain, big business can’t make a profit on sick pigs. So medications are used. The goal is to keep the pigs just healthy enough to grow fast. That’s what matters in that system.
Besides poor air quality, pigs in these environments face extremely tight living quarters. They never get to enjoy sunshine or root in fresh soil. Their lives are marked by confinement from birth to slaughter. In fact, pigs under stress will often begin chewing each other’s tails, which is why tail docking of young piglets has become common practice.
It’s no wonder that pork produced in this system is tasteless at best, and, more likely, off-flavored.
I have painted a bleak picture. Truthfully, this is only the beginning. There is much more that could be said about how most pork is produced today.
But it’s time to lighten the tone.
Here, we do things very differently.
No vertical integration. We own the pigs, and we make every decision regarding their care as needed. They live in the wide open air and are given room to live a tidy life. Pigs are remarkably neat creatures when given the opportunity.
Our pigs are healthy. I have never needed to give one a shot. And they grow fast.
The sunshine warms their backs and the rain rinses them clean. Hay or corn stover keeps them warm in the winter, and non-GMO grains keep them satisfied. Their snouts till the pasture, allowing me to reseed new species of grass. They are a valuable land management tool.
They live a happy, social life. And they don’t chew each other’s tails.
All of these factors play a direct role in meat quality. I’ve lost track of the number of people who have eaten pork from our farm and declared it the best they have ever had. When a pig is allowed to be a pig, in an environment that is flourishing and appropriate, the result is just right.
There’s no magic. Just pork raised the way it was meant to be.
In about a month, we will be opening up our half-hog pork shares. It’s a great
opportunity to get a stash of high-quality pork that’s been raised well. Stay tuned.