Pigs are not naturally filthy animals. In fact, given proper care, they are rather clean. They like to wallow in mud on a hot day because they have no sweat glands and because evaporating water from the mud cools them down. They like to hunt for roots, corms, and tubers. A field infested with yellow nutsedge—an invasive, tough weed with small, juicy tubers (called nutlets)—can be cleaned up by running hogs in the field and letting them root out the nutlets, which they naturally love to do.

In the fall when wild apples, acorns, and mast (beech seeds) are dropping in meadows and forests, hogs that have access to this kind of land will eat massive quantities of them. On this kind of natural diet, pork becomes wildly flavorful. The last time I ate at the French Laundry restaurant in California’s Napa Valley, I had such a piece of pork: Its flavor and tenderness were exquisite. Chef Thomas Keller said the animal had been fed apples on the Pennsylvania farm where it was raised. Before 1950, turning pigs out to forage was generally considered a part of good animal husbandry. It provided vitamins and minerals, but that practice ended as hog farming became more technological and focused on mass production.

Pigs are tough on pasture, tearing up the soil to get at roots, especially if too many animals are put out on an acre. Organic culture keeps the forage pressure low. Conventional farmers who pasture pigs may clamp a ring through their noses. This hurts the pigs if they try to root. Organic hog producers consider this mutilation and consequently inhumane. Conventional pigs for the most part get a steady diet of corn and soybeans.

Organic pigs are given access to pasture when it’s available, meaning the spring, summer, and fall. They’re also supplied with feed, which must be organic.

There are other rules contributing to healthy living conditions for the pigs. They can’t be housed on 100 percent slatted floors, where manure and urine fall through holes into a holding pit, as pigs are in conventional operations; instead the pigs are given the chance to have some flooring that’s not above manure, and that floor is cleaned daily. They also can get outside in the fresh air. All their feed and bedding has to be certified organic. Early weaning at less than four weeks is not allowed, meaning that for a longer time, they get the benefit of mother’s milk—and closeness to mom—leading to less stress and more hog happiness, and that means better meat. At least 55 percent of their feed has to come from their own farm, or an arrangement has to be in place with another organic grower. Routine confinement in crates or boxes—a cruel but common practice in conventional hog operations—is prohibited. Fresh air and daylight have to be provided. Spacious lying and resting area with adequate bedding must be provided. There has to be land enough to handle the incorporation of composted pig manure as fertilizer (pig manure is exceptionally good manure for this purpose) where crops can be rotated. Manure management has to minimize soil and water degradation and optimize the recycling of nutrients back to the land where hog feed is grown.  ....read more