The Challenge of Raising Healthy, Pastured Pork
by Hannah Breckbill
I thought raising pigs might be worth a try. I was going into my second year of operation at Humble Hands Harvest, a worker-owned farm near Decorah, Iowa. We were selling our organic vegetables at the Decorah Farmers Market, and with the right licensing, we could add pork as well as the lamb I was already raising to our market offerings. There was no pork at the farmers market in Decorah, and I anticipated that there might be some demand. And, a friend a half an hour drive away had been raising pigs for a couple of years, and she was generous with knowledge sharing. I had support, I had land access, I had a market (albeit untested), and I had the interest.
I got started with the bare minimum of infrastructure: a few lengths of movable electric netting, a solar charger, a couple of old waterers from my support farmer, and a shade shelter made of scrap lumber, two bent over cattle panels, and a tarp. Once I had the pigs trained (and they train well to electric netting!), I could move them from one paddock to another every few days. I’d build their next paddock out of electric net, fill a waterer, let the pigs out of their old paddock and into their new one, and finally drag their shade shelter into the next paddock as well. The dragging part sure wasn’t for the faint of heart—it’s quite a challenge to make an object that’s moveable by humans but not moveable by pigs!
I followed my support farmer’s advice of getting certified organic, no corn no soy feed mixed for them at a local feed mill. It was mostly barley, peas, and wheat, coarsely ground. Then I took an extra step and mixed the feed with water and a bit of apple cider vinegar 8-12 hours before feeding it, so that it had a chance to ferment a little bit and become more easily digestible, also known as delicious! If I got the water-to-feed ratio just right, the mixture would rise like bread dough. I’d feed the pigs by upending a bucket in their paddock and getting out of the way as quickly as possible while they clamored for the food. The pigs don’t mean any harm, but they don’t give any consideration to beings that are between them and their meals!
The pigs also got diversity in their diet, both from the pasture that they rotated around, rooting up grasses and clovers, and from our vegetable excess. One of the most pleasurable, even admirable, things I know is the sight and sound of a pig rolling in a pile of tomatoes, eating with sloppy gusto.
As it turns out, raising pigs rotationally on pasture is a lot of work, and by the time I took the first of the pigs to the locker in August of that first year, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a profitable enterprise. And then I tasted the bacon. I remember laughing out loud, it was so delicious. I knew from that moment that doing it again next year was in the cards. “Worth it” is not just a financial measure.
We raised pigs for five years at Humble Hands Harvest. We improved systems—mostly, their shade shelter became a collapsible farmers market tent with t-posts on every corner, which was much easier to move. We got a sense of what cuts of pork people would and wouldn’t buy at farmers market. We learned about pricing for profitability: as it turns out, with the labor inputs we had, and the organic feed, and the cost of butchering, licensing, and freezers, $8.50/lb was our break-even price. That means, if I sold you a piece of pork for anything less than that, I was paying for you to eat it. So, our price is now $10/lb for basic cuts, and more for cuts that cost more to make at the locker.
That price is a lot higher than what you’ll find at a grocery store. I’ve seen bacon on sale at gas stations for $2.50/lb. Once, at the farmers market, a man stopped to look at our meat prices, and asked me, “Nine dollars for how much ground pork?” When I told him that it was for a pound, he shook his head and walked away, saying, “That’s too much for me.” The words that came out of my mouth, cheerfully, but not with the best marketing instinct, were “Well, it’s just right for me.”
We’ve stopped raising pigs on our farm, but not out of lack of affection for their enthusiasm, curiosity, and muddy cuddling, nor a lack of appreciation for the fertility that they added to the pasture. Our farm is not the right size or shape for raising pastured pigs at scale, and scale is what we would need in order to make the pork a more economical choice. We decided that raising sheep was less labor intensive and we could incorporate perennial native plants on sheep pasture, since the sheep mow but don’t till like pigs do.
The other night I cooked some bratwurst for a church potluck. Someone asked, “I really like these brats, they’re so good! What will I do for pastured pork now that you’re not raising it?” I didn’t have a great answer for her—not many people raise pastured pork, because not many people have markets that can afford it. I feel certain that part of the answer is generally to eat less meat, but to spend good money on regeneratively raised meat when you do eat it. If you’re able to buy directly from a farmer, splitting a half hog with a friend to keep in your freezer, is probably best. I don’t know of any rotationally pastured pork that finds its way to a grocery store.
Hannah Breckbill co-owns Humble Hands Harvest, a worker-owned cooperative farm in the Driftless region of Northeast Iowa growing organic vegetables, pastured pork, and grass fed and finished lamb. She’s passionate about sustainable land tenure for young and beginning farmers, hosts a Queer Farmer Convergence on her farm, organizes for local resilience to climate chaos, plants perennials, and is eager to build power with other farmers.
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If I were not a vegetarian, I would definitely look to buy meat from a farmer like you! I encourage my carnivorous friends to eat animals who have had a good life. I wish the economics were easier for all farmers in all areas of farming. Thanks for this fascinating account of life with porcine beings. Like many other species, including octopus, they are probably smarter than humans.
Hannah’s honesty about the economics is right on. The public generally undervalues the cost of a steward of the land’s investment in working with rather than dominating nature. Our country’s embracing a cheap food policy undermines the health of the land and its people.