Golden LEAF, A&T Help Prospective Pork Producers

For Immediate Release
February 8, 2002

Greensboro, NC: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University will help 10 North Carolina farmers per year for the next three years set up unique hog operations, which are designed to help them replace revenue lost from a declining tobacco market.

The Golden LEAF Foundation is providing funding for the project.

“Just a few years ago, many tobacco farmers also raised hogs,” said Dr. Charles Talbott, an adjunct assistant professor in A&T’s Department of Animal Sciences. “However, as profit margins declined, most gave up and concentrated on something more profitable, like tobacco. Now that tobacco growing isn’t as promising as it once was, farmers are looking for something that they can do to make enough money to continue farming. That’s where we see our hog project going.”

The market that Talbott envisions these farmers meeting isn’t the same market where larger producers sell their product. Instead, the project will focus on providing a unique pork product for the Niman Ranch Pork Company, with the hope that higher profit margins will make hog farming an attractive option.

The Niman Ranch Pork Company, based in Iowa, produces pork for upscale restaurants and grocery stores across the nation. They acquire hogs from small-scale producers who adhere to a strict code of animal husbandry, and who feed their animals natural feeds and raise them on pastures or deeply bedded pens without the use of growth hormones or sub-therapeutic antibiotics. The pork is then marketed as a specialty.

During the project’s first year, Heifer Project International will provide each of the ten farmers participating in the project with two mature boars and 10 mature gilts raised according to Niman standards. The Golden LEAF Foundation will provide the farmers with “hoop” structures in which to raise the hogs or funding to convert an existing structure into one that can house the hogs according to Niman Ranch standards.

From the original herd, producers are expected to produce at least 200 hogs per year for the Niman Ranch Pork Company, as well as the equivalent number of animals (12 gilts and two boars) to “pass on” to subsequent farmers accepted into the program.

Farm advocacy groups, including the North Carolina Coalition of Farms and Rural Families, will help A&T identify potential project participants. Among the criteria considered will be a history of growing tobacco and raising hogs, farm income, and a willingness to participate in on-farm research and the training of future participants.

Once chosen, these farmers will also receive technical assistance from North Carolina A&T State University’s Cooperative Extension and Agricultural Research programs, to teach them how to raise hogs according to Niman’s standards.

The Golden LEAF Foundation, based in Rocky Mount, provides economic impact assistance to economically affected or tobacco-dependent regions in North Carolina. Golden LEAF is a nonprofit organization that was created in 1999 to oversee the money distributed from North Carolina's settlement with Philip Morris Inc. and other tobacco companies. The group distributed more than $5 million in its first-round funding and $7.7 million in the second round.

Heifer Project International is a non-profit organization which provides livestock to projects targeting hunger, in an effort to help people establish herds to meet their nutritional needs with dairy and meat products.  

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For more information, please contact Dr. Charles Talbott, Department of Animal Sciences, (336) 334-7672.