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Greg Gunthorp’s prices average
10 times what hogs fetch on the commodities market, although
the bottom line for Gunthorp is making enough money to keep
his family healthy and happy.
Photo by Kathy Dutro, Indiana Farm Bureau |
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Family and Community Benefits
Alternative hog production systems provide excellent
opportunities for producers to work with other family members and
develop relationships with other workers. In some cases, children
can check and bed huts, while older children can help with fencing,
feeding, watering and bedding. An alternative system also allows
family members to work as a team in moving pigs, setting up pastures,
placing huts and shelters, laying water lines and feeders and rounding
up pigs for weaning or treatments.
Vic Madsen of Audobon, Iowa, who uses hoop houses
in his hog production system, told participants at an annual Iowa
swine systems conference in 1999, that alternative systems meet
the “fun test” in helping producers do a better job.
“This winter, my 15-year-old son helped me put cornstalk
bedding in a hoop with finishing hogs,” Madsen said. “When we were
done, he started laughing out loud. One of the pigs had picked up
a corncob, had it sideways in his mouth like a big old cigar, and
was literally prancing around the building. That pig made chores
fun for my son.”
Dwight Ault finds raising pigs on pasture enjoyable
as well as profitable and environmentally sound.
“It is a real treat for me and the sows when they
are taken to pasture,” he said. “It is good for mental outlook,
a kind of therapy that farmers need. To me, it is a joy when you
watch sows munching green legumes and grass after a winter of dry
feed.”
Small, independent producers also can stimulate local
economies. Independent producers use local veterinarians, farm supply
stores and feed companies, and pay local truckers to transport their
animals. Other businesses may receive indirect support from additional
dollars circulating in the local economy.
Profits from an independent producer can multiply
three or four times in a community, said University of Missouri
rural sociologist William Heffernan. Profits from a corporate or
private company-owned farm leave the community almost immediately.
Patchwork Family Farms in Columbia, Mo., brings different
segments of society together that are connected by an interest in
quality meat or pork raised by independent producers. The co-op,
which sells pork from its retail outlet, collects about $3,000 in
four hours on sales days. With prices competitive with conventionally
raised pork, the co-op is able to serve both low-income and affluent
residents.
“You’ll see a homeless shelter resident, a doctor
in a suit and a university professor, and they’re all standing in
line talking,” said Lindsay Howerton, the co-op’s marketing coordinator.
“We know this is something special, because usually these people
wouldn’t interact. They’re all talking about where their food comes
from.”
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