Back to the beginning

The last time has been a turbulent one for me and Camille with its ups and of course downs as well, and we have been quite busy. As a friend of Camille said it: “gotta love having a full time without getting paid”. Suffice to say, we hope at some point it will pay off. In all this time it has been difficult to find time to write up some reflections of our experiences, with as a result that we have a backlog of about a month and a half. On the positive side: there is plenty to write about!

In June, we took the plane to Göteborg, from where we took a bus to the centre of the city. It was nice coming back after all this time, but also a bit weird. I had been to the city quite often before, but for completely different reasons all the time. Nevertheless, we left the city quite quickly, and took the train up north to Värmland, where we would spend the weekend celebrating the longest day of the year, dancing around a phallus symbol disguised as a cross, and catching up with friends we got to know in Lund, some four (!) years ago.

When the weekend was over, we took the train to Linköping, where we were picked up by the farmer at whose place we would be staying for three weeks. The city disappeared behind us, and the roads kept getting smaller and the trees more numerous, until we reached the farm. At that point we had been driving on gravel dirt roads through the forest for some twenty minutes, so you can imagine it felt quite isolated.

The family we were staying with were not farming for a living, but were passionate hobbyists, with some twenty hectares under their management. As it turned out, they were familiar with and inspired by the same people as me and Camille; they watched the same Netflix documentaries, read the same books and followed the same Youtube Channels. I think this goes to show that once you start to become interested in Regenerative Agriculture (that which seeks to restore the land, rather than damage it as little as possible), you are quite limited because worldwide there is only a very small group of people pushing the boundaries on this, and putting things into practice.

Needless to say, we had many interesting dinner table conversations!

The family had quite an impressive private library, and I think that in three weeks time I ploughed through five thick books that had been on my to-read list for some time. Our stay was also very nice for the fact that we got to see some things we had read about in real life, most notably ‘pasture-based systems’.  Sounds complicated, but what does it mean? Let me explain.

Almost all farm animals eat grass. Some, like cows, can get 100% of their diet from grass, whereas others, like chickens for example, need other stuff to eat as well, most often grains. The good thing about grass is that it is permanent, which means that the soil doesn’t need to be ripped open to grow it; and it grows on sunlight and rain. In effect, grass is a very effective tool for harvesting solar power, and turning it into food for animals. Animals, whose eggs, milk and meat we can then eat. Humans cannot eat grass, but we can eat the animals that eat it. Circle of life, simple stuff you would say, but modern agriculture has come up with ways to mess everything up by taking animals off the grass, moving them in buildings where they get sick, feed them grains (which you need tractors and oil for) and then be left with a massive amount of manure.

This is why this regenerative ‘avant-garde’ that I talked about earlier seeks to restore the balance, by moving animals back to where they should be, so that they can harvest as much ‘free food’ (solar energy) as possible. The farm we worked at did this as well, and it had chickens, pigs, cows and rabbits on grass, of which the cows and rabbits were 100% self sufficient in terms of food. They were moved regularly, so that they have fresh food and can leave the land (with the manure to fertilise on it) to recover and grow back with more strength than before. Healthier land, healthier animals, better food, happier humans: everyone wins.

One other benefit is that all this builds immense fertility, of which other, wild animals and plants benefit as well. In the three weeks that we spent at the farm, we have seen rabbits, hares, squirrels, all kinds of butterflies, a deer with two babies and a wide variety of birds. I’d like to leave you then with a quote that I found in one of the books I read:

“Though the news seemed to darken with each week that spring, this grotto of bedrock, hardwood and freshwater seemed strangely distant from catastrophe. Here was an almost giggling piece of planet, flowing with a startling grace in spite of everything not well in this world”.

Jef

I dip, you dip, we dip

Back to Sweden for Midsommar with our friends!!

Pig making nest

Daily chores

A day with Jef the farmer

HI

 Angry clouds

Rainbow mangold

Woodchips mania

Attack on the Turkey by the Fox

The girl and the weeds

FIKA

View on the farm

Beauty

And a good time was had by all!

Pigging out on the farm

On a bright Sunday evening in early June we took the train to Eindhoven (NL), from where we took a bus that took us way into the countryside. The province of Brabant where we were in is not a very densely populated one. The sandy soils there are not very good for farming, so that is why they specialised in pigs; currently there are about twice as many pigs as people. Needless to say, that was exactly what we were coming for; albeit not for the nasty dark-concrete-floor-wire-cage pig farms, but for one raising organically grown heritage breed slow growing pigs, more about that later.

On the road again

From the bus stop in a tiny village (church, square, two bars and one supermarket) we were picked up by Teresa, the woman who together with her husband Peter ran the farm we were going to visit. We arrived at their place, and after some wine, peanuts and small talk we went to bed.

Their foodtruck: you can find them every Saturday on Tillburg market (Dutch people go there!)

The farm itself was a beautiful 19th century building where Peter had lived his whole childhood, his dad had been a pig farmer before him. Teresa used to be an artist (very visible throughout the house), but moved in with Peter after they met, and had taken on the role of farmer’s wife and butcher. As she said it: “Peter takes care of the living animals, and I take care of the dead ones”. The next day we would see what she meant by that, as she showed us her drying room, where some lovely hams and salami sausages were hanging to dry and become tastier by the day. The killing itself was not done by her, but by a professional slaughterhouse some 15 minutes away. From there they would get the pig back in six pieces, which she would further process and turn into sausages, coppa, ham, salami, meatballs, hamburgers and of course lard.

Going HAM

"Bacon is good for me"

Throughout the two weeks, our main tasks involved feeding and cleaning up after the pigs, tending to the garden (weeding, planting and harvesting) and helping Teresa in her kitchen/butchery. 

Doing crépinette, more or less with conviction

Heart and kidney to be minced and made into spicy meatballs

Some bacon from the chin

Butchery hat selfie

About the pigs themselves then: it is important to know what differentiates the pigs on this organic farm from the ones you would normally encounter in the supermarket. The biggest difference has to do with fat, or better said, the lack of it. That is because apparently customers want pork without a lot of fat and just a lot of cheap protein for their money. That is why breeders have created the well-known pink cross-breed, with the best so-called “feed conversion ratio”. That basically means you can stuff this pig with cheap Brazilian soy beans, and it will just get bigger very fast, without getting fat. The dream of every body-builder you would say! Unfortunately when the fat goes, the taste goes away along with it, so that you are left with a tasteless piece of watery proteins. Furthermore, these pigs are butchered at the age of five months, which is way too young to develop any taste whatsoever. 

Pigs in their apartments and the field they have access to every day

Not so much at Peter and Teresa’s farm though. First of all, they did not work with this pink hybrid designer crossbreed, but with an almost extinct Dutch-German race called Bonte Bentheimer. This type of pig grows rather slowly (one year to full-grown size), and if you overfeed it, it will just get fat; that is why Peter put these pigs on strict rations. Furthermore, these pigs had access to the outside, where they could run around, play and dig with their noses for roots. That way, they get some nice intramuscular fat (think Wagyu beef here) and of course they are much happier by it. Finally, for what it’s worth, they also listened to classical music throughout the day, and were fed on leftover bread from an artisanal organic bakery closeby!

Jef grinding the bread 

Pieces of organic bread that made us hungry! 

Needless to say, we had two very nice weeks at this farm, where we learned a lot about growing heritage breed pigs, and making sure they had the best life possible. Myself, I have become quite enchanted with the idea of raising some heritage breed pigs one day. Maybe not quite these ones, but another one that is on the list of endangered races. That way, we’ll save them by raising them and eating them, and I think that is a wonderful thing.  

Jef

Gertrude. My best friend on the farm. I think she had a crush on me.

Jef trying to be serious for two photos. So I took three.

Trimming hedges, excellent upper body workout.