Three (not so) Little Pigs

     We woke up early this morning with anticipation of the day to come. Today is butchering day! (Warning: somewhat graphic images of the day follow). As I write, a fire has been lit under the scalding tank, scraping bells are ready, and our friends and neighbors who have volunteered to help are probably eating breakfast and will begin trickling over. Only our pigs are blissfully unaware, and are probably sleeping in.

      In the interest of full disclosure, our pigs are no longer “little” and they are no longer “three” in number, but that is how they started out back in early summer; three very cute little pigs. Now they are enormous hogs and one has already been harvested a few weeks ago and delivered to Mike’s parents in Ohio where he may already be making appearances on a breakfast plate. That was Stubby (yes, we named them against our better judgment), and being the mischievous bully ringleader, he has not been missed by the other pigs or us (he often “hogged” all the food). He was adept at breaking out of their enclosure and leading the other pigs in romps through our woods and fields as we went chasing after them, coaxing and trying to round them back to the pig pen. So needless to say, he was an easy choice for first culling.

The day begins--scalding tank is heated and the pig has been killed

Pulling the pig into the scalding tank

Our other two pigs on the other hand were quite sweet and I feel sad at their parting. Smally and Spotty have definitely grown on me over the months, despite their horrible smell and their oafish clumsiness, stepping in their food dishes and knocking their water over time and time again. We have raised them on a diet of mostly ground corn, apples, whey left over from our neighbor’s cheese making, and food scraps, plus whatever they discover rooting up the ground since we never ringed their noses. Our good friend John Arbuckle has further perfected his hog raising system, planting fields of forage crops, and then rotating his pigs around in them. Doing this, he has managed to decrease their need for outside grain inputs considerably, to a quarter of former rations. Let me just plug his awesome pig product here, ROAM snack sticks (http://roamsticks.net/roam-snack-sticks/), made from pastured happy pigs, coming to a health food store near you. (Let me also just point out that the alternative snack sticks on the market are made from pork bought at discount when it is recalled. And yes, the FDA apparently allows this. You truly get what you pay for in our food system!)

Rolling the body back and forth in the scalding tank by using chains

Using bell scrapers to remove the hair

I have come to appreciate pigs as ultimate food composters. I used to feel frustrated when some food item went bad before we could eat it, but now I think, “bacon!” and toss it without remorse into the scrap bucket. Imagine if every restaurant or cafeteria had a few pigs out back to take care of food scraps… We would have a much more efficient, closed-loop food system. Instead, we send almost all food scraps to landfills where they become methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as they break down, and farmers grow massive amounts of corn and soy and other grains that go to feeding hogs (and other animals) in CAFOs. That would be “Confined Animal Feeding Operations”, not very nice places to be in if you are a pig, or a human for that matter.

We have been learning more this year about food systems, and looking into all of the uncomfortable dark corners that most people would prefer never to become aware of. One fascinating read if you too would like to delve deeper is Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat.  The author, Barry Estabrook, mentions a hog CAFO that he visited near us, “Smithfield Foods” in Milan, MO. We were aware of Smithfield’s existence before now, mostly because we know an elderly couple of environmentalists who have the total misfortune of having built their homestead on land that became adjacent to the CAFO. You can imagine how their air quality quickly deteriorated as the manure lagoon started filling from the excrement from thousands of hogs. That lagoon spills over in heavy rains, washing into the local watershed and seeping into groundwater. Ugh. Our friends have filed and won lawsuit after lawsuit against Smithfield and yet Smithfield just keeps paying out and returning to business as usual, undeterred. They are one of the largest CAFO operators in the nation, running several of the 20,000 CAFOS that currently exist in the US.

The pig is hoisted up to working level as baby Johanna and Regina watch

Mike and Brian saw the pig slowly in half after removing the head and organs

We have also been hearing about the human side of Smithfield’s operation from labor organizer and former CAFO worker Axel Fuentes. He makes an appearance actually in Pig Tales, and he also made an appearance recently at a local event viewing and discussing the film about hunger in America, A Place at the Table. He is part of the Latino community in Milan, which has exploded to 4,000+ since Smithfield started in the last decade. Most of these workers are illegal immigrants lured over to the US by promises in advertisements in newspapers and billboards that these factories put up in Mexico and other countries. The reality they find is pretty horrible (if they make it) and then they become trapped here.

Warning: don’t read this next paragraph if you want to keep eating cheap meat as usual, as it is a bit graphic!

At the film viewing, Axel Fuentes said something I find very disturbing. He pointed out that we quite literally still have slavery in this country, in fact, in the very county I live in. Illegal immigrants are abused and taken advantage of in all sorts of ways. At Smithfield, they work 12 hr. shifts and have a single 5 minute break in that time. That means many of them wear diapers because there are no bathroom breaks. And the work is dehumanizing, desensitizing, and brutal. I can’t begin to imagine. As a society, we can do way way better than this!

So! With that cheery news in mind, there are alternatives! There are so many amazing small family farms springing up all over this country with hardworking people like my friends John and Holly Arbuckle treating their animals with dignity, honoring their animal instincts for rooting and pecking and being able to move around. These people deserve way more support and frankly, they deserve to make a living whereby they can support their families from farming income. (CAFOs set meat prices so artificially low that it is hard to compete. Farming is mostly a labor of love as most farmers are just breaking even at slightly higher prices!) I know there are ways to access these alternatives in almost every part of the country and it is worth making a little more effort to seek them out. 

Dan and Mike work on carving up one pig into smaller cuts of meat

Teri, Brian and Steve work on the second pig, ribs in the foreground

Well, this is all getting a bit preachy and big picture, and as I write, the little picture is unfolding right outside: a group of neighbors has gathered to relearn forgotten skills and participate in a new yearly ritual. Our Amish neighbor Jake is going to be leading the first part of the process, scalding the skin and scraping the gristly hairs off (after the pigs are quickly and humanely killed). Then our friend John will help give pointers for butchering each hog into many smaller cuts which will be wrapped and frozen. While Brian and Teri have raised pigs before and have more experience, this is our first year and the help is really appreciated! Once wrapped and labeled, we will store the meat in a chest freezer at our friend’s house with hopes of one day powering a freezer with solar panels at our house. While this day will be hard in ways, we are taking our turn doing the unpleasant work of eating meat so that someone doesn’t have to 12 hrs. a day, 7 days a week.  

Brian, John and Mike holding future prosciutto?

Note from the end of a long day: Success! As the photos show, the day went really well. We are really fortunate to have many hands in the community willing to make light work of our arduous task!