Free range Pig Farming / Outdoor Pig Farming | Organic Pork Farm

Choosing the right site for outdoor pig keeping is critical to protect the environment, look after the animals and achieve the most efficient production. The Catchment Sensitive Farming Project is helping farmers like David Robinson produce the best meat while reducing pollution and damage to the environment. His farm has now become a demonstration model for the BQP Eco-Pig Project, part funded by DEFRA, which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of higher welfare pig production. It all starts with where the pigs are placed. It's vital for us right from the off that we get the correct site. We like sandy soils, free draining, not too much of a slope. It's also vitally important that you get your landlord on site so he understands exactly what you require and the involvement of Pigwise with their assessment joins all three up and we end up with a site that we can manage effectively. Working with the experts really helped David Robinson get the basics right, but there were more elements to consider. As well as looking at slope and location, the most important thing also is potential connectivity to things like watercourses. On some sites, if runoff or sedimentation was to occur, then it could run off into a surrounding ditch or watercourse and it's best to try and identify that right from the outset. Ideally, the topsoil should be sandy loam or loamy sand and in an ideal world, that would be over sand or gravel to allow the site to be free draining. Free draining means birds aren't attracted to the site, which is good for the pigs and the local environment. The measures that we've taken on this site to deliver the highest environmental benefit we can are basically trough feeding and the use of troughs on this site means that we can reduce the carbon footprint of the whole business, there's less standing water and a lot less birds using the site. David Robinson also introduced wide buffer zones with tussocky long grass to filter out sediment, but there are some things that he's still working on. It would be great to have pigs on grass all the time, but certainly on mineral soils and vegetable crop rotations, we found that the legacy of grass after pigs is expensive to reclaim to hand back to the landlord and we're working our way towards finding some way else of stopping the mineral soils blowing rather than grass. And the best solutions don't have to be complicated or expensive. One of the simplest things that we've done on this unit is the use of these wide low ground pressure tyres, which help to reduce compaction on farm tracks and minimise runoff. Using the right tyre types and pressures on this unit also reduces fuel consumption by about 10%. Troughs and measured amounts of feed can save another 15% in costs. That's all good news for farmers. This project's been very good for us. It's shown us where we can save an awful lot of cost in our system. It's reduced our carbon output. We can produce a really high welfare British pork product for a discerning consumer and I think the way going forward will be to reduce cost, more output, higher welfare. It's been great to work with David because he's been so enthusiastic to try various environmental measures. It's nice to work with somebody who is willing to have a go at trying different mitigation measures on farm and once we know those work we're more confident to go out and speak to other farmers who are perhaps more nervous about trying new mitigation measures. To find out how the CSF can help you to take measures to improve the environment, animal welfare and the efficiency of production, please visit our website.