Just over ten years ago, whilst I was studying agriculture business at university, I walked into my first commercial piggery. I remember the smell first – a rich waft of pig waste and subsequent ammonia that almost burns one’s nostrils. Then the noise. Squeals echoing off concrete. No fresh air. No soil.
The sows were locked in metal crates so narrow they couldn’t turn around. Piglets had their tails docked so they wouldn’t chew each other’s tails, caused by aggressive, crowded, or frustrated behaviour in conventional pig farming. Chains hung above the pig pens’ to distract them and give them an alternative.It was explained as necessary. Efficient – standard practice. I didn’t question it.
An example of a conventional piggery. Supermarkets don’t show images for a reason.
What wasn’t explained was why pigs chew tails in the first place. They chew because they’re bored. Because they can’t root in soil. Because they can’t move properly. Because they’re not allowed to behave like pigs!
A pig’s nose is built for digging. On pasture I’ve noticed they’ll spend much of their day with their heads down rooting and foraging. On concrete, that instinct doesn’t disappear it turns sideways. Tail biting and aggressive stress induced behaviour in piggeries is the norm.
Again the problem isn’t the pig or livestock – It’s the environment.
I was educated and trained at one of Australia’s better known agricultural colleges. I spend 4 years learning how to optimise farming systems, improve efficiency and maximise profitability. What I wasn’t taught was how dependent that system is on confinement, antibiotics and old time farmers who are over the age of 56 (median age of farmers in Australia) – not willing to buck the system and do things better. It took years to unlearn this reductionist way of thinking. My real education began in South Africa, outside Stellenbosch, working with Farmer Angus at Spier. There I saw pigs outdoors, rotating behind cattle and poultry in a well-managed grazing system. The cattle grazed, the chickens followed, and the pigs came in to till and fertilise. One of my morning jobs was driving an old Italian Fendt tractor to a neighbouring dairy to collect whey – the leftover liquid from cheese production. The pigs knew the sound of that tractor. As I came up the hill, they’d run to the fence. The moment I opened the valve and the whey flowed into the trough; I was immediately their best friend. That’s when it clicked. Pigs are the most extraordinary up-cyclers and can significantly contribute to solving our ridiculous food waste problem. (1/3 of food globally goes to waste. Here in Kenya is is predicted that < 50% of agricultural produce (fruits and vegetables go to waste).
Thobani and I learning from the pope of regenerative agriculture at Spier – circa 2017.
Our good friends at Farm2Feed Kenya are doing a great job to reduce this disaster and punch climate change in the face.
Pigs are monogastric animals, like us with a single stomach and an adaptable digestive system. They can process fruits, vegetables, grains and by-products efficiently, converting diverse food streams into growth. They’re built to turn surplus into nutritional value!
They’re also intelligent and determined. If fencing isn’t properly electrified and there’s a sow in heat nearby, they’ll find her. Managing pigs isn’t about confinement it’s about infrastructure and an ongoing engineering challenge. We’ve learned that at Ololo. One morning I found young weaners happily excavating the lawn near the pool while guests looked on in disbelief. That was the day from when our fencing improved significantly.
Today we have around 60 pigs on the farm, and they sit at the centre of how the farm functions. One thing I discourage on the farm is the naming of our pigs.. Pigs are not pets – they are livestock and eventually, will become pork chops on your dinner plate. Albeit our Durack boar “Bolingo” sheng for big testicles, does indeed deserving of that name as we now have a consistent breeding program and cutest little piglets living their days suckling from mum and rolling in mud.
Each week our pigs convert roughly 2–3 tonnes of food waste that would otherwise go to landfill. When food decomposes anaerobically, it produces methane a greenhouse gas 22 times more potent than CO₂. Instead of contributing to that cycle, we redirect surplus food streams back into the farm.
They eat rotting avocados, mangoes, apples, pineapples, potatoes, rice, skuma wiki, tomatoes and everything that slips into the waste pandemic that is going on in Kenya every day. They also receive what remains after we tap off our beef and chicken bone broths. We supplement with Black Soldier Fly larvae – turning waste into insect protein and grow azolla as an additional feed source (more on this later).
Ololo Farm Pigs spend their days feasting on food waste, bone broth waste, black soldier fly larvae and azzola (duck weed we grow on our ponds). When they aren’t eating they are sleeping in their mud baths under the acacia.
They fertilise soil. They cycle nutrients. They reduce waste. They strengthen the system and live a happy life able to behave like pigs and till the soil for us whilst providing the most delicious, nutrient dense meat in the land. Ultimately, they’re tractors you can eat once they’ve finished working – no diesel required.
Ten years ago, I thought those pig crates and the docked tails were just part of an efficient and necessary modern agriculture. Now I understand that when pigs are allowed to express their natural behaviour, they become one of the most useful animals on the farm.
Thanks for supporting our regenerative agriculture projects.
George “Eating is an agricultural act” Wendell Berry
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An example of a conventional piggery. Supermarkets don’t show images for a reason.
Ololo Farm, Kenya - A blog about regenerative agriculture 