“The truth is, a farm swallows you up, takes everything you have, and then asks for more. It is also an exercise in humility: you can’t do it alone..”  ― James Rebanks, Pastoral Song

A few years ago I was lucky enough to join my Dad on a trip to Jackson Hole Film Festival. Both my parents have worked together to make wildlife documentaries for over 35 years with a passion to conserve and share stories about the wild animals only few of us are privileged enough to see. Tigers, Elephants, Wolves, Lions; all of which adorned the walls of my family home in large scale print.

But despite this, for me it’s never been these large, elusive wild animals that have caught my attention but the more abundant domesticated kind we share our lives with day to day. The dogs, horses, pigs and smaller pets we bring into our homes or connect with through our local landscape and our human need for companionship. The film that affected me and stayed with me the most from my week at Jackson Film Festival wasn’t one of nearly extinct rhino or rare snow leopards, it was a documentary that was playing in a smaller screening room called The Last Pig.

It was a film about a pig farmer in the US who became so attached to his pigs he could no longer send them off to be slaughtered for meat. He battled with the decision that came every few months of which pigs would be sent to the abattoir. Each day he grew closer to the pigs and would look at his dog and back to the pigs noticing the similarities between the two species. He asked himself why he should be the one to decide who gets to live and who gets to die. The farmer eventually made up his mind that it wasn’t for him to choose and turned to farming vegetables.

On my return from Jackson I decide I too no longer wanted to eat pork. The film had had too much of a strong affect on me and when I looked into my dogs eyes I thought about those pigs in the film.

I’m embarrassed to say this didn’t last that long. For maybe around 6 months I didn’t eat pork, but before long I caved and guiltily said yes to a bacon sandwich after a late night and it was a slippery slope from there. The emotions from the documentary dampened and I didn’t feel the same guilt or empathy I felt 6 months earlier without an intimate connection to the source of my food.

So here I am 5 years later, after years of going back and forth with my meat consumption from vegetarian, to pescatarian to flexitarian and something somewhere in between, confronted with a text from a friend that said, “Do you want to be a pig farmer?”.

In one of my usual monthly moments of contemplation where I question many things I’m doing with my life and start to dream about all of the better and more fulfilling career avenues i could pursue, I’d mentioned to my friend a desire to work more closely with animals and somehow integrate that with my design practise. But I hadn’t expected this opportunity to come up just a few weeks later.

I’ve always been keen to try new things, getting bored easily and being a bit of hobby junkie. I’ve done everything from horse riding to shooting, handball to dog agility, freestyle skiing to squash…to name just a few. But being a pig farmer certainly wasn’t something I’d tried before. So eager to yet again feel the high of novelty and learning I tentatively replied, “Yes?!”. And looking out of my office window on a grey Monday afternoon I had visions of me walking the fields, pigs in tow feeling contented and purposeful.

Of course I know deep down this isn’t the reality of farming. I’ve read countless memoirs and stories of farmers over the past years in an attempt to learn from this alluring way of life, with a firm favourite being English Pastoral. Growing up, a close friend of mine lived on a farm and I spent many evenings and weekends helping her with the orphan lambs. It was warm and wholesome. But my mum was sure to remind me of the hard graft this family, as with many others, had to put in all year round, plucking turkeys, shovelling manure, lambing and milking cows whilst the rest of us were tucked up in the living room with our feet up or going off on holidays abroad, whilst they had never set foot on a plane.

Luckily for me a ‘pig farmer’ was really a bit too grand of a title for what this offer really entailed. The opportunity was to join an experimental pig co-op conceived by Tom Kemp, an impressive force of knowledge around all things trees and agroforestry. Tom’s idea was that between a small group of us each could buy their own piglet, chip in to a bi-weekly feeding rota and split the cost of the food and other expenses. All with the promise of having your own pig at the end of its life and being able to decide to do with it. Whether to sell the meat, share it with friends and family or invest in a giant chest freezer and stock up for the coming year.

Aside from raising traceable and high-welfare meat Tom’s main goal is to incorporate the pigs into a regenerative agroforestry scheme at Trefusis Estate, utilising the natural rooting behaviours of pigs to turn over and enliven the soil and aid tree growth. This is all something I’m slowly learning about and am yet to fully understand the benefits of, but for those who are relatively new to the term like myself, Agroforestry is used to describe the many different ways of combining tree-growing with farming; “Despite having once formed the standard of food-growing practice globally, agroforestry systems have become relatively unusual within British landscapes since orchard systems started to decrease.” *

Earlier this year I participated in a Material Skills Learning Journey with the neighbourhood organisation Civic Square and architectural research practice Materials Cultures. We delved into the links between architecture and agriculture and the loss of connection between the two worlds which has caused a global environmental crisis. 60% of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions are associated with material extraction and manufacturing both in the UK and overseas.

In a Materials Cultures research study, A Mosaic Landscape, they discuss the benefits of mixed farming. “A shift to Agroforestry is consistent with a perspective that seeks to integrate industrial demands into resilient ecosystems. Agroforestry offers a range of common goods including soil rehabilitation, carbon sequestration, support for biodiversity and local economies, and production of food and materials. While they may not provide vast quantities of construction timber for mass production, agroforestry systems can still supply significant quantities of high-grade timber as by-products of a layered system that serves multiple purposes.”

When studying in the Netherlands I came across the work of design researcher Christien Meindertsma. Her work has always been a huge source of inspiration for me, the way she delves so deeply into everyday materials and uncovers their histories and provenance. One of her projects among many I was greatly inspired by is her book PIG 05049. The book documents all of the ways one animal is used and where it eventually ends up including many surprising products from paint to sandpaper, cigarettes, medical devices and more. This book helped me see the complexities of the everyday objects we are reliant on with no understanding of the root of the materials that make them. It made me realise that turning vegetarian or vegan would not eliminate the use of animal products within our lives.

So it is with this knowledge and grounding that I am stepping with one small toe into the world of farming. Confronting the role of animals within a complex growing system. For me this experimental approach to raising animals, nurturing our land and sharing the load with others feels refreshing and breaks down so many barriers to connecting with source that feels otherwise so distant and alien to the majority of us who spend our weekends popping into the supermarket to buy vacuum packed bacon or B&Q to buy a sheet of plywood. As a society we have deeply lost our connection to material things but through the smallest acts of rebellion and inventiveness we can regain knowledge and rebuild our local landscapes and communities. The better connection and understanding each of us has to the source of both our food and the materials we use daily to build our homes, for furniture or firewood, the better we can care for and help restore our ecosystems and distorted relationships with consumption.

Being totally honest I still feel apprehensive about the moment the pigs will be taken off to the abattoir as my empathy towards animals hasn’t lessened over the years. However one thing I have learnt since watching The Last Pig is just how important livestock can be in the regeneration of our land and if done consciously and carefully it can have hugely positive effects on the environment. Perhaps at the end of all of this I too will make a choice like the farmer in the The Last Pig, that I too am not cut out for this. But deep down I know that to do so would be to deny the fact that animals are an integral part of our man-made world.

* Material Cultures, Mosaic Landscape