This is the final post about our visit to Flying Pigs Farm. See:

We’ll also be posting the full recipe for the braised pork belly shortly. Yum!

The Pigs

The pigs at Flying Pigs Farm are very happy pigs. They have green grass to shred up, mud to dig in, a . . . → Read More: Flying Pigs Farm: The Animals]]>

This is the final post about our visit to Flying Pigs Farm. See:

• Our Visit to Flying Pigs Farm
• Our Feasts at Flying Pigs Farm
• Reasons to Support Flying Pigs Farm (including their use of biodiesel)

We’ll also be posting the full recipe for the braised pork belly shortly. Yum!

The Pigs

The pigs at Flying Pigs Farm are very happy pigs. They have green grass to shred up, mud to dig in, a forest to forage in, and pens to keep then dry and warm. The setting is beautiful. There are fences but around a very large territory (actually, three separate territories, by pig size).

The pigs are rare heritage breeds (Large Blacks, Gloucestershire Old Spots, and Tamworths), see their site for more information. While it’s true that these pigs are being raised to be food, the process is also saving their breeds from extinction.

We visited them right after a heavy rain, so the ground was very muddy, but they loved sticking their heads in it, up to their ears!

The pigs are raised 100% naturally and slaughtered carefully and humanely. The pigs’ foraging diet is supplemented with conventional feed.

The Piglets

The piglets and younger pigs are in a separate area with their mothers. They are adorable. One young black pig is adept at getting out of the pen, but goes right back in after running around for a while!

The Chickens

The chickens were the most interesting part. The hoop tent is left open and they are free to roam. When we went to see them they followed us out in mass when we walked out of the hoop tent. It’s kinds of weird being followed by an army of chickens, And their coloring was beautiful, as were the roosters’.

They wander and meander slowly, until they get to the edge of the road. When they decide to cross (why?) they move much faster! They wander in the grass and pick at bugs, etc. They wander back to where the piglets are and jump into their pens, grab some of their feed; it’s all family. And their eggs are spectacular!

Some of the common points that they raise:

That’s right AND wrong, by virtue of being a straw man. We . . . → Read More: Another Reason to Support Flying Pigs Farm: Their Truck Fuel]]> Every once in a while I get into a discussion with someone who has a bone to pick with the concept of the local food movement and farmer’s markets in general.

Some of the common points that they raise:

• Industrial farms are the only system that could possibly feed the whole world. If we went back to farming circa 1900, millions would starve.

  That’s right AND wrong, by virtue of being a straw man. We don’t need to go back to the farming techniques of the 19th century to move to smaller-scale natural farming.

  Mankind has amassed TREMENDOUS knowledge in the intervening 100+ years. From our understanding of the sciences we can employ far-improved natural techniques to increase yield instead of using the brute-force petrochemical approach we do today.

  One piece of reading that discusses this is Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy

• Greenmarkets cost much more than shopping in the supermarket. Shopping from them is an indulgence for those who can afford it.

  Again, that’s right AND wrong. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can amass a bigger bill buying the same items than you would at the supermarket. But if you’re smart about it, you will spend less.

  This is mostly because the greenmarket is a true market economy. If you jump on the first tomatoes of the season (or those grown in a hothouse), you are going to pay a hefty premium. If you wait until at least five vendors are selling a product, the price will be lower. Supermarkets have created consistency in product, availability, and pricing (at the expense of nutrition, taste, and food miles).

  The irony here is that many of the people who argue these points do so on a reflexive ideological basis, and that same ideology loves free market principles; its fun to watch the cognitive dissonance.

  The only products that are consistently more expensive are animal products (meant, poultry, dairy). That’s because the animals are fed vastly different diets and raised and slaughtered under vastly different conditions than the factory-farm products at the supermarket, and it’s at the expense of your health that you buy such products.

  But it’s a win-win because after we adjusted the amount of animal products that we buy, we actually started eating far healthier quantities of meat and dairy as well. Over all your health will be better and your food bill the same or less.

  I am speaking from a year of personal experience. We went from roughly $100 on average per week to $80. Of course, since we eat a lot more meat and dairy in the winter when there is less produce, our bill goes up in the winter and down in the summer.

• The last common anti-greenmarket argument is:

  Surely it must be worse for the environment for 50 small vendors to each drive 200 miles to the market in old junker trucks than it is for a supermarket to ship using a “modern supply chain.”
  
  First of all, the “modern supply chain” optimizes costs within a framework of other requirements that the stores have outlined (see above). Not to mention the fact that this argument makes it seem like the supermarket is sending one huge shipment across the country (or continent) vs. the greenmarket’s many, which is false.

  But for my new favorite counter to this argument, I tip my hat to our friends at Flying Pigs Farm:

  http://poststar.com/news/local/article_c9db015e-8fb6-11e0-8ff5-001cc4c03286.html