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Greg Gunthorp
LaGrange, Indiana
SUMMARY
 1,000-1,200
pastured hogs
Up
to 8,000 range chickens and ducks annually
25
acres of feed corn on 130 acres
BACKGROUND
Greg Gunthorp was raised on a farm only a mile from where he now lives with
his wife, Lei, and their three young children. Gunthorp owns 65 acres and uses
about 65 acres of his parents' farm.
Gunthorp's pigs farrow
in his fields, graze year round on pastures sown in wheat, clover, rye and various
grasses, and harvest their own corn. Gunthorp allows them to root through the
stalks after the harvest on his father's farm. During the deepest part of winter,
he adds hay and a corn-and-soybean feed to their diet.
The Gunthorps' chickens
are housed in up to 20 shelters that offer outside access. Gunthorp rotates
his flocks from shelter to shelter to spread manure and minimize the birds'
impact in any given area.
After perfecting his
rotational grazing system, he turned to marketing. Now, "I spend more time
marketing than I do farming," he says.
Meeting and getting
to know the chefs at the best restaurants in Chicago are a major focus of his
work. Gunthorp travels more than 100 miles to the city at least once a week
to talk with chefs in their kitchens.
"Chefs appreciate
how food is supposed to taste," he says. "They know how much flavor
has been lost when producers grow anything, animal or vegetable, for a certain
look or a certain weight, or for its ability to be packed conveniently instead
of for its best taste." He also sells his pork and poultry at a popular
farmers market in Chicago. Gunthorp takes advantage of the crowds at the market
to promote his burgeoning catering business.
PROFITABILITY
It costs Gunthorp an average of 30 cents per pound to raise a hog to maturity.
He sells pork from between $2 per pound to $7 per pound for suckling pigs. Overall,
Gunthorp's prices average 10 times what hogs fetch on the commodities market.
The Gunthorps sell between 7,000 and 8,000 chickens and ducks at $2 per pound.
ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES
Gunthorp's hogs and chickens are free-ranging. They have access to shelter and
feed during bad weather, but spend most of their time foraging. As a result
- and in marked contrast to conventional practices of raising hundreds and even
thousands of animals at a time in confinement - Gunthorp experiences few of
the manure disposal, disease, aggression and feeding difficulties that go along
with more conventional methods.
Gunthorp also notes that he uses less energy and releases a lot less engine
exhaust into the atmosphere as a pastured pork producer, because he doesn't
use a combine to harvest grain, or trucks to haul the grain to storage, or huge
fans and gas dryers to remove moisture from the feed. His hogs just knock down
the corn once he lets them in his fields, where they eat stalk and all.
COMMUNITY, OUTREACH,
QUALITY OF LIFE
Gunthorp participated on the USDA's Small Farm Com-mission, serving
as an adviser to former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.
He is proud to say he is making enough money to keep
his family healthy and happy. "We can get by just selling 1,000
pigs a year, and the smarter I can get at raising them and selling
them, the better off we'll be," Gunthorp says.
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