Almost 90% of Italy’s estimated 12 million pigs are reared on intensive farms
The vast majority of pork in Italy is produced intensively indoors, with smaller, outdoor pig units close to extinction
Franco Borrello’s black pigs roam freely in the bucolic foothills of eastern Sicily, where they graze and forage for acorns and wild roots in his 40 hectares (99 acres) of oak forest. Every year he loses several of them, as these ancient breeds of domesticated Sicilian pigs often sneak out from the metal enclosure.
Franco, 56, doesn’t care that much. “They practically live in the wild,” he says. “And it’s a price we’re willing to pay.”
But it’s a price that, today, a rising number of pig farmers in the country can no longer afford. According to data analysed by the Guardian, the number of pig farms in Italy dropped by 76% between 2005 and 2016, even though the number of pigs has remained relatively constant. Almost 90% of Italy’s estimated 12 million pigs are reared on intensive farms.
When Franco began rearing the black pigs about 40 years ago, the breed, similar to wild boars, was nearly extinct.
“It is a prized breed of pig,” says Franco’s daughter, Annalaura, 25, who manages the family business with her father and brother, Giuseppe, 21. “Their meat contains high levels of HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, which plays an important role in human nutrition.”
Thanks to Sicilians’ rediscovery of the black pig, which roamed the Nebrodi mountains in north-eastern Sicily and whose fossilised remains dating back to the eighth century BC have been found on the island, the Borrello family slowly began to build their farm in Sinagra, one pig at a time, following environmentally sustainable practices.
From a distance, the Borrellos’ farm – nestled among the lush green hills of Sinagra and crossed by the Naso River – looks like something straight out of Hobbit Shire, with dozens of stone structures that resemble small homes.
“They’re called zimme,” says Annalaura. “They’re ancient constructions for pigs that we’ve reconstructed because they have a low environmental impact.”
While most of the pigs are left in the wild, others, especially sows with their piglets, are kept in large outdoor enclosures, each with a zimma, which is built using poles arranged in a circle that converge at the top to form a cone. Then they are clad with stones, earth, a layer of Mediterranean broom and ferns. They are cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
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