Meat Our Pork Producers

from The Sandy Pig Magazine - Issue#3 Winter 2022

by Oxford Sandy Black Pig Group Foundation Charity

The Significant Disease Charter

Meating our Pork Producers

Way back in 2015 Mike and I embarked upon an adventure. It was an adventure that neither one of us had ever anticipated, an adventure that has grown and blossomed into where we find ourselves today. Custodians of 20 acres of grassland and woodland, shepherds of a flock of native breed sheep, rare breed pork producers, farm shopkeepers, and owners of a butchery unit where we butcher not only our own produce but produce for other local smallholders. So how did we get here? Sit back with a brew and I'll tell you!

Back in 2015, we had recently moved back up to my parents farm. My dad had recently passed and my mum had been diagnosed with dementia. Mike was working full time as a HGV driver, I had recently given up my job as a physio and lecturer to look after our two young children. 3 and 4 years old. My dad had been ill for some years prior to his passing and the farm had been rented out to a local farmer for hay and silage production. Despite my Dad's efforts to bring wildlife back to the farm, it still felt like it was barely breathing, it just didn't feel alive somehow.

Then one day I had a bit of an epiphany, I suppose you might call it, whilst reading an article in the countryside magazine written by a smallholder. 'Why don't we get some chickens?' was the question that greeted Mike that night when he got home from work. And that simple question was the beginning of our adventure.....just like that!

As soon as the chickens arrived I could feel the farm begin to breathe again, ever so slightly bu i felt it. It also felt good to be providing our family with fresh tasty eggs that i could guarantee didn't have anything added, or that weren't sat on the shelf for weeks before we bought them. Within a few weeks of getting the chickens, along came the cats. I decided very early on that everything would have its place on the farm and that i didn't really want to use chemicals if possible. So the cats came as pest control. Next to join the farm were two rare breed sheep, one of whom is still with us today and is the foundation of our growing flock. Over the course of the next 18 months we began to rent more and more land from my mum. We brought on some cade lambs so we could produce meat boxes initially for ourselves and close family. But then something else happened... another epiphany! (I know..two in one story??!!) I felt incredibly privileged to be in this position, having all this fresh air and wonderful high welfare food; to be surrounded by beautiful nature and wildlife, which by the way, seemed to be multiplying by the day.

What if we included our community in our new found lifestyle? What if we supplied our local community with our fabulous high welfare, stress free food? What if we encouraged school children to come up and learn about what farming is all about and help to educate them on where their food comes from? What if, through social media, we tried to educate the adults in our local community too? So we set up our Facebook page, spoke to the children’s school and increased our flock.

farm education through the LEAF organisation so hopefully moving forward we can offer this type of educational day trip to more and more local schools. Besides these school visits we decided we didn't want to leave out the adults, after all the teachers, TAs, and parent volunteers seemed to get as much out of their visits as the children did. This year we have dipped our toes into adult day visits to the farm, inviting small groups to significant events within the shepherding year. This year we saw our first visitors for lambing in February and again on weaning day in June, and this is something else we are hoping to expand on. After all adults are part of our local community as well as the children and we never stop learning do we?

In 2017 we decided that producing pork would be a good idea too, and bought our very first weaners. We believed them to be OSB's, they looked like OSB's but we could never be sure as the breeder we bought them off wasn't sure either! So our first batch of weaners was very much a learning curve, we made mistakes as all new keepers do, but in the end we sent off 7 very healthy, very happy, very fat pigs and managed to sell most of the produce we got from them. It was during this first stint at finishing pigs that we found the Oxford Sandy and Black Pig Group (this was before it gained its charity status) and the fabulous Kim Brook, the font of all knowledge! We asked questions and got involved, even driving down to Cirencester for a talk on pig genetics. The following year, with the help of the group and Kim, we sourced our (very definitely) OSB weaners from Nicola Wardle in Wales, and have relied on the group to source our weaners each year since. The group play a vital role in the preservation of this breed. Not only does it educate the general public about them by presenting the breed at shows across the country, publishing YouTube videos, its website, and of course through social media, but it also offers enormous support to breeders all over the UK and beyond. Regular webinars hosted by industry experts, zoom social events for fellow breeders to connect, the weekly pig quiz, the stock list published every week, not to mention Kim on Tour. All of these things offer much needed connections to help and support its members, but its support doesn't end there. Since becoming a registered charity in 2020 the group has also been able to offer financial support in various ways, be that when times are tough or through the Genetic Spread Allowance. The GSA is a scheme set up by the charity to encourage the 'spread' of the OSB bloodlines across the country to help protect them should a devastating disease outbreak ever arise.

The local primary school was incredibly keen for their reception class to come and visit the farm. So the following May, 30 enthusiastic 4 year olds came to visit, together with 6 adults. I spent the two weeks leading up to their visit, brushing, tidying, strimming, laminating signs (No food here, fingers out of mouths there, wash your hands, no entry...), and i even spent a day bathing my chickens!! I didn't get much sleep that’s for sure, but it was all worth it. The day went so well, the children got to feed the chickens, collect eggs , meet and stroke the sheep, and they asked lots of questions. And so did the adults....lots and lots of questions. What a buzz it was. Our visits are now quite regular, with up to three class groups per year. I have invested in some training in on

Mike and I were both very honoured to be asked to get involved with this scheme, albeit in a very small way, as the group's transporters. With our backgrounds in transport, and due to us already having all the relevant qualifications and certifications, and having a livestock trailer, I guess we were the obvious choice. So if a member is having trouble getting a pig to or from a destination, then we can help by arranging that transport, and the charity helps with costs through the GSA scheme. So far we have covered a little under 2500 miles since our first movement back in December 2021 and had the privilege of meeting fellow members face to face including Andrew O'Shea who also works tirelessly in the background with Kim. What a team they make!

But our grassland was suffering. We wasn't overstocked for our acreage, we didn't use pesticides, but something was off. We listened, we read, we learned, we researched, we asked questions of experts and then we had our answer. Our soil was dying. We had it tested, our pH was off, our levels were wrong, it was barren of life, we had to do something. Lots of suggestions were given to us; killing off what grass we had left, ploughing, reseeding, more nitrogen fertiliser. All of this sounded incredibly harsh and then we heard about regenerative agriculture which sounded slower but kinder. We limed our fields over a two year period to slowly correct our pH, we stopped using artificial fertiliser. Instead we chose to overseed our worst fields with a clover and herb rich ley, which acted as a nitrogen fixer within the soil. The clovers deep tap roots would also help to break up our heavy clay improving drainage. This meant harrowing the fields rather than killing everything off and ploughing, and then using my now redundant fert spreader to overseed the new ley. We invested in electric fencing so we could strip graze the sheep rather than using our old set stocking method. By using this method of grazing we could pretty much control which areas the animals were mucking on and then moving them on to 'fertilise' the next section. Doing this has had so many benefits not least the reduction in worm burdens within the flock. But the biggest difference is that our land is no longer dying, i wouldn't say it is completely healed but just like our woodland, it is recovering nicely. Our sward is now a complex multi species ley, we have seen a greater variety of pollinator insects and butterflies. We have seen lots and lots of fungi, and our sheep have finished so much quicker than they ever have before. The lady who rents a small patch of our woodland for her apiary, says her honey looks slightly different this year because of the pollen from all the clover flowers her bees have been busy pollinating. I'd say that was a win, wouldn't you?

Our next big step came a couple of years ago. We realised the impact our farmed animals were having on our ecosystem; the more animals the greater the diversity of wildlife we saw. But something wasn't quite right. We had put our pigs through our woodland in a rotation system and that was working brilliantly. The pigs were incredibly happy rooting up bugs and grubs, clearing away invasive brambles, and rooting up new willow growth. In the areas they had been, the invasion of willow had reduced significantly; our native woodland trees were breathing again and recovering nicely after being strangled and stunted for years by the incredibly invasive and viral willow. The pigs always look so happy up there doing what they do best. Living their best life and working hard for us in the process. Like i said before, everything on the farm must have a purpose. For us, our pigs are an incredible asset to our workforce. We would never have gotten on top of the willow by ourselves, but our OSB workmates do an amazing job. And when it is time for them to go they produce the most amazing flavoursome meat which of course we share by selling it to our community.

Over the years of producing food to sell, we have always had one bone of contention; finding a local butcher who was willing and able to treat our produce with the respect it deserves and labelling it to meet Environmental Health (EHO) and trading standards. When selling your produce there are so much legislation and guidelines that have to be met, even when selling to family and friends; Use by dates, storage instructions, ingredients and allergens is the biggy. No one would like to think that family or friends would sue, but what if a life changing event happened? We were rubbing along 'ok' with our fourth butcher which we had used for a couple of years, until last Christmas, when he decided he didn't want to pack for us anymore. He was still happy to butcher, but not pack. This unfortunately wouldn't legally work; if he butchered and we packed we wouldn't be able to ensure ingredients were correct, or that the cold chain would be upheld, or cross contamination wouldn't occur, and the traceability chain would be broken. The only legal way would be to not only pack but to butcher it ourselves. So we faced another challenge. Setting up our own butchery would not be easy and would require a substantial investment. Our turnover isn't huge so would investing all that time, effort and money even be worth it? We were at a make or break crossroads and then it dawned on us, there would be many other smallholders facing the exact same challenge, many other smallholders that were wanting desperately to supply their communities with their high welfare, nutrient rich produce just like us. So it was time to help our local community again, our local community of smallholders.

It took months of paperwork, of being passed from pillar to post to find the correct advice, the correct information. It took a lot of slog on Mike's part to do all the physical work to completely renovate an old mobile butchery unit and chiller, to get it up to the standards that were acceptable to us and the EHO. From making the decision on a very cold wet March day whilst we were lambing, it has taken 6 long months to finally process our first animals in September. But we made it, we have learned lots of new skills along the way, and we are now fully up and running. So not only do we butcher and pack our own animals, including curing bacons/gammons and making sausages/burgers, but we offer our services to other local small holders. We butcher to their requirements, advising them through the whole process so they get the very best out of each carcass. Then we carefully pack their product, and label it complete with their name, price per kg, and price per item. Plus all the legalities making each pack completely compliant with EHO and trading standards specifications so they can sell their wonderful wares to the general public (and family and friends).

We are not sure where our adventure will lead us next but from 8 chickens in 2015, we, as a family, now tend to a flock of 80 sheep, bring on 8-10 OSB weaners a year, our wildlife population is very definitely on the up and increasing in variety (3 species of owls at the last count), we have moved into regenerative farming, we do educational visits for both children and adults, we do all of our own butchering on site as well as offer a complete bespoke service to others, we have a farm shop two days a week, and a growing local community of supporters for which we are very grateful.