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5. The Pig Society, Cornwall
The sun is shining upon the Tamar Valley, and seven pigs who have a fortnight to live are looking happy. Children are throwing them chunks of marrow and windfall apples, which the pigs are gobbling with appropriately piggy noises. One pig is lounging in the wallow – the muddy corner that the pigs make for themselves, which protects them from sunburn.
These pigs live in the village of Harrowbarrow, close to the Cornwall/ Devon border, and they are being reared for meat by the nine households that comprise this year’s Pig Society. They live in a fenced-off area of the community orchard, eating GM-free pig nuts and donations from the local allotments, and right now, they are scoffing plenty of windfall apples.
“Pigs are intelligent and sociable,” says the Pig Society’s Rachel Kaleta. “We should nurture and appreciate living creatures. If you’re going to eat meat you have to be able to see the process through.”
Four months ago, the pigs arrived as 15kg, three-month-old weaners. Now each pig weighs around 90kg. They have spent the summer being visited and fed by cooperative members twice a day, talked to, petted, and cared for in a way above and beyond anything the law demands. They dig, wallow, play and eat, and they sleep in a house called South Pork. It is a picture of bucolic bliss.
“We do it mainly for the welfare,” says Kaleta’s partner Simon Platten, who coordinates the Pig Society as part of his role with Tamar Grow Local. “Also for the known provenance of the meat, which we bring in at around two thirds of the market rate.”
On the evening of 15 September, these pigs will be herded into a trailer, where they will spend the night. The following morning they will be taken to the local abattoir, and around 10 days after that they will return as meat, delivered to the members of the cooperative who buy into the scheme by the half-pig and who are, right now, putting in orders for the cuts they want, planning celebratory sausage parties, and negotiating over whose kitchen is the most appropriate. No one involved is remotely sentimental about this: eating them is the whole point.
The pigs are photogenic Oxford sandy and blacks, an old, slow-growing breed which have an excellent flavour, and which are less prone to sunburn than other breeds (sunburn can, it turns out, be a serious pig problem).
There are, of course, a host of regulations and legal requirements for the keeping of pigs, and while the Pig Society, now in its fourth year, is a CSA (community supported agriculture), Kaleta is legally responsible for the animals. Each pig is fitted with an ear tag when they are moved, and they have licences for their journeys from farm to orchard, and then from orchard to abattoir. All their food and any sickness is recorded in a diary which is filled in by everyone who feeds them. “I keep a record of any treatments given,” says Rachel, “including things like worming and lice treatments. Touch wood we’ve never had to treat them for anything else.”
Members of the Pig Society share the care of the pigs over the four months, working in pairs of households, and taking on two weeks’ pig care at a time.
Kaleta and Platten worked this year with another couple, Sue and John, dividing up the twice-daily visiting and feeding duties to accommodate school runs and other commitments. “It’s easier for us to do mornings,” says Kaleta, who has two young children. “We work it all out. We’re very diverse and we do a lot of different sorts of jobs.”
The pigs are clean – “cleanest when it’s raining,” says Kaleta - and they do not eat anything that could be termed pig swill. “We’ve had to tell people not to bring kitchen scraps down for them,” Rachel says, “because as soon as food’s been in a kitchen, it’s illegal to feed it to them.” The apples and marrows are transported directly to the pigs from the allotments and trees.
The key thing that makes the scheme viable, of course, is the availability of the land. “The land they’re on is owned by someone who lives away,” says Platten. “You really do need a philanthropic landowner to make a project like this a success.” Harrowbarrow’s community orchard, beekeeping and other projects coexist on the same land.
One of the joys of the pig collective, and the thing that makes it so sustainable, is the fact that it only lasts for four months every year, and that those months are over the summer.
“After four months we’re starting to flag,” says Simon. “It is a commitment. And it’s no fun in the rain.”
Sue and John, cooperative members, are gearing up for the arrival of the meat. “We make our own sausages,” says Sue. “We do Toulouse sausages, all the different sorts. We buy the skins. We also have the legs, shoulders, all the cuts, and John uses the trotters to make stock.” She looks a little wistfully at the pigs as she adds: “I’d love to do a black pudding, but I can’t really face collecting all the blood and transporting it home. You have to bring it straight from the slaughterhouse. One day I’ll do it.”
So far in the series ...
1. The community supported farm
2. The bike repair co-operative
3. The community garden centre
This article is part of the Live Better Community Project month. In September, we are showcasing 17 community projects from around the UK. On Wednesday 24 September, we will ask you to vote for your favourite project. The project with the most votes will be awarded £1,000 of funding, and two runners-up will each receive funding of £500. One voter chosen at random will receive £150 worth of gift vouchers for Nigel’s Eco Store. Terms and conditions here.
With thanks to: 10:10; FOE; Project Dirt; Neighbourly; UK Community Foundations; Groundwork; Business in the Community; Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens; the Prince’s Trust; Garden Organic; the Royal Horticultural Society; the RSPB; Keep Wales Tidy; The Wildlife Trusts; and Mind.
Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month’s Live Better challenge here.
The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
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