I'm very fond of pigs. They're smart, funny and engaging animals. Which means that - as a meat eater - I do all I can to ensure that the animals that die for my food habits have had the very best possible life. These particular pigs got exactly that. They were local, fed well and free-range. And the farmers genuinely cared for them.
At the time this video footage was shot, the farm in question was run by friends of mine, Andy and Mel James. They loved their animals. Every one had a name. They were well-fed and housed and had big fields to dig and root in and wet mud wallows for the summer. Everything, in fact, that a pig loves and should have. And when they had exhausted one field they were moved to another, allowing the first - suitably fertilised with pig dung - to recover. Those fields were very biodiverse with a wide range of insects and small mammals, lots of native flowers and other plants and many types of bird.
The hardest part, of course, was when the mature animals had to go to slaughter. Andy and Mel tried to minimise the frequency of this by running the farm as a community asset, encouraging schools and local families to visit and get involved. In addition to the pigs there were also goats, chickens, ducks, geese, a few turkeys and bees. They even created a kind of 'forest classroom' space in a spare field that schools could use for craft sessions or wildlife forays. And they looked at sub-letting parts of the farm to people with small agri-businesses such as growing microherbs. The small profits from these enterprises offset the cost of keeping the pigs alive on site.
Sadly, Covid closed the whole thing down. I actually used the forest classroom space during lockdown to home my Monster Zoo arts project (see here). This helped local families and helped the farm too as they were able to sell some of their fresh free-range produce direct to local people with no air miles travelled. Most importantly, kids could also learn where their food came from.
Sadly, financial pressures eventually forced the farm to shut down but I'm still friends with Andy and Mel, who re-housed as many animals as they could before leaving. I miss my almost daily visits to the farm. It was a sterling example of how farms should be - compassionate, honest and with the welfare of the animals a top priority.
Here are a few fond memories:
If only all farms were run this way. Yes, the meat would be more expensive. But that would encourage us to eat less, which is a good thing. And animals would not have to spend their short miserable lives in factory farms and CAFOs.
I discussed this subject in greater depth here - do have a read if you're interested.
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