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The packaging for Niman Ranch’s free-range pork suggests that the loin for sale is environmentally friendly. The label depicts the corporation’s pork as an all-natural product, with imagery of the Iowa landscape that evokes cleanliness and health.
Companies like Niman Ranch are capitalizing on a new breed of consumers, for whom animal welfare, healthy eating and going green are primary concerns. But the question remains whether free-range pork products really translate into better environmental practices as a whole.
Paul Willis of Thornton, Iowa, is the manager of the Niman Ranch Pork Corp. He oversees some 600 free-range pig farmers and about 1,000 pigs of his own. His company is the national market leader in free-range pork. The animals are raised with access to open pastures and sunlight – and the animals like it that way.
The land, however, not so much.
Meat production is energy-inefficient no matter how it’s done, so there may be no way to reconcile meat eating with environmental responsibility and healthy land stewardship.
Free-range farming requires lots of feed, an expensive input, according to Mark Honeyman, professor of animal science at Iowa State University, coordinator of ISU’s research farms and an expert on free-range farming.
Free-range and other alternative farming techniques “have no advantage in the winter,” Honeyman said. “Efficiency is poor, because alternative systems do not moderate the environment as much” as confinement operations do.
Free-range pigs eat nearly 5 percent more than those raised in confinement, Iowa State researchers have found, and require nearly 9 percent more feed to gain the same weight, all while growing nearly 4 percent slower than confinement pigs. An average confinement hog requires 5.9 pounds of food per day, while an alternatively raised hog needs 6.18 pounds. Over the six months it takes for a pig to become market-ready, an alternatively raised pig will have eaten about 50 pounds more food than its confined kin.
Life in the hoop
Willis’s pigs live in structures developed for free-range pig farming called hoop barns, which look like tents large enough to host a state dinner. Each can hold about 150 hogs.
Pigs raised in these unheated structures are exposed to lower temperatures during the winter and tend to eat more to increase body fat. Food goes towards warmth rather than putting meat on their bones, Honeyman said.
He also sees feeding pigs that have access to the outdoors as wasteful, since wild scavengers steal some of the food, wind blows some of it away, and rain and snowmelt wash some away or soak it into the ground. Feeding troughs help minimize the problem, but don’t eliminate it.
Hoop barns use organic materials to enhance the animals’ comfort, which poses other costs. Willis provides his pigs with bedding and nesting materials composed of cornstalks and straw, with each pig using about 200 pounds of bedding in its lifetime, and a gestating sow needing upwards of a ton of bedding in her life.
Raising pigs in an alternative way also has a negative impact on the ground itself. In the spring, Willis releases his pigs into pastures, where they instinctively forage and root around in the dirt, damaging the land. He alternates pasture use by raising hogs one cycle and planting crops the next, which only ameliorates the damage.
Alternative farming also requires more space than confinement farming: Confinement operations generally allow about eight square feet per hog, while hoop bedded barns give each animal 10 to 12 square feet in open pastures, Honeyman said.
Lots of pigs means, of course, lots of poop. Willis said the manure either goes directly into the soil or mixes with bedding, where it decomposes and generates heat, which can assist in keeping animals warmer during winter months. The manure and bedding are cleaned out after each generation of pigs is sold, about every four to six months. The mixture can then be composted and spread on crop fields.
Sometimes the manure is stored for later use, releasing nitrogen into the air, producing the distinctive “pig pen” smell. The chemical is an irritant to humans and may exacerbate heart and lung conditions.
Premium products
Despite all these environmental questions, and the greater financial investment involved, alternative methods of hog raising are unlikely to disappear because the products sell at a premium created by niche markets.
Confinement farms are unlikely to go away either, because of their ability to produce inexpensive meat.
Honeyman hopes to develop a hybrid system that combines the superior animal welfare of free-range farming with the efficiency of confinement farming.
But until then, some consumers will demand low meat prices and others will buy only free-range and certified-humane meats. The environment’s welfare is caught in the middle.