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Sustainability Means ‘Freedom to Really Farm How We Should Be Farming’

Food Tank

Trisha says niche markets like this are critical to keeping small family farms like theirs alive. “If If we didn’t have Niman Ranch, we wouldn’t be raising pigs…we are a small farm and 225 pigs is just tiny on the scale of the large conventional operations.

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Finding Balance as a Sixth-Generation Pig Farmer

Food Tank

By his senior year, Williams was trying to figure out how to return home and take over the family farm. Williams, his wife Hannah, and their toddler Lyle now live on Williams Family Farms, sustainably and humanely raising pigs and farming about 400 acres of cropland. Luckily, his father was just about to retire. “To

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Easy and ‘Modern’ Isn’t Always the Best Way: The Promise of Sustainable, Humane Pig Farming

Food Tank

With fewer from the next generation taking over family farms, they are often bought by large-scale farmers and consolidated. McCleary, at 24 years old, says maintaining the family farm for the next generation is his number one goal. Most people wake up, eat, and eat.

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A Young Farmer Makes the Business Case for Humane Hog Farming

Food Tank

Animal science is what’s taught in college now…It used to be animal husbandry, [meaning] the real relationship it takes to steward and take care of these animals, not just produce pork.” The family’s farm serves as a model for how smaller-scale, humane hog farming can be both environmentally and economically sustainable.

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Opinion: Farm Forward’s Investigation Into Alexandre Farms and the Greenwashing of Large-scale Dairy

Modern Farmer

If this is the case of animal welfare labeling, consumers are right to be concerned that it is likely true of “green” labeling as well, particularly for the dairy industry, which is one of the most environmentally intensive industries on Earth.

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What’s in a Name? Food Labels, Explained

Modern Farmer

(Photography by Lena Beck) Animal Welfare Approved: This certification is not administered by a governmental body but by the nonprofit A Greener World. This certification is only provided to small independent or family farms, and the AGW does not charge a fee to award this certification, making it unique among certification standards.

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Exiting the Factory Farm

Modern Farmer

Murphy Family Farms (later bought by Smithfield Foods) helped out with the loan needed to get started. The Faaborgs farmed hogs for 30 years. When Tanner Faaborg came back to the farm as an adult, the family began thinking about ways to transition out of hog farming. “We

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