Pigs to Plants

The Challenge

Informal pig farming in South Africa presents a complex set of challenges woven from poverty, food security, cultural practices and environmental concerns. The sector contains half of the country’s estimated 1.3 million pig population. The current practices, however, raise serious concerns for a host of reasons, ranging from public health to animal rights.

Pigs generally are kept in inadequate and even inhumane conditions, including spaces that are smaller than the minimum size as set out by the Dept of Agriculture, with poor sanitation, limited access to fresh water, proper feed and veterinary care.  Animals who have been rescued but have subsequently passed away due to this earlier neglect, have presented, on post mortem, with encephalitis, hepatitis, lung lesions, abcesses, ulcers and heavy parasite loads.  Products from these animals are made available to communities already suffering from high incidences of diabetes, hypertension, respiratory failure and cancer.

These informal piggeries pose serious environmental hazards with waste disposal polluting water sources and soil, impacting surrounding ecosystems and human health. Very often the animals are slaughtered on site through barbaric means. Stabbing, strangulation, and other inhumane methods are carried out in view of neighbours, including children. Some are hardened enough by this exposure during their developmental years, that they have been witnessed gleefully participating in the slaughter’.

This, as well as the sounds and smells associated with these facilities, are a constant source of social stigma and conflict. These concerns lead to tension within these already vulnerable and often impoverished communities.

There is a lack of regulation in the sector as the country struggles with record high unemployment and crime rates, and an ever-growing population. This practice is supported by the Government through the supply of antibiotics and feed to farmers regardless of their animal welfare standards. Overuse of antibiotics is leading to antimicrobial resistance which can be deadly, especially in compromised communities. The informal nature of backyard pig farming makes it difficult to track disease outbreaks, monitor practices, and ensure adherence to animal welfare and environmental regulations.

Backyard farmers have limited access to resources and knowledge, and often lack access to proper training and infrastructure to improve their practices and ensure sustainability. Furthermore, most of these farmers have a primary occupation that take up much of their time, thus leading to neglect and cost saving at the expense of animal welfare, and humane and sanitary practices. Regulation is further compounded by the fact that many law enforcement officers and municipal workers keep pigs as a further income source.

The underlying problem, however, goes beyond just pigs. It’s about fragile livelihoods, limited access to land and resources, and the search for sustainable food security solutions in the face of poverty and inequality.

Our Approach

Our programme addresses these issues by offering informal pig farmers an opportunity, should they so wish, to transform from farming pigs to farming plants. In return for either the surrender of their pigs to the sanctuary, or the slow closure of their pig farming business, GFAS provides financial support, resources, personnel to transform their space into a thriving market garden that not only produces a range of in-demand fresh fruit and vegetables, in the heart of a community that both needs and deserves this best version of food security, but which also adds value through the brand The Graceful Garden, allowing many products to be sold at a premium to enhance income.

Our current model aims for a self sustaining programme within the next five years, with growth to other municipalities underway at Cape Agulhas and Kouga.

The project is headed by GFAS Founder Nicola Vernon and her long term colleague Marshall Rinquest with who she established a network of community gardens under the banner of the previous NPO she set up, Greyton Transition Town.  Together with Head Gardener Lezaan Swart and a team of gardeners, recruited locally, the team are currently working on five gardens in the Valley of Greyton and Genadendal, with several more in the pipeline, both in the valley and in other municipalities.

In schools we offer humane education, teaching children, from pre-school to matric, how growing vegetables is kinder to health, animals and the environment.

Programme Support

The programme is funded by Olsen Animal Trust and Humane Society International.  The monitoring and evaluation of the programme will be overseen by the University of the Western Cape Dept of Sociology via a PhD student who will spend around six months working with an already established baseline, to design a study that can be implemented by GFAS with occasional input from the Department

Conclusion

This shift fosters food security, empowers communities, improves public health, and saves hundreds of thousands of animals from unimaginable suffering, helping to build a kinder, less violent society. Our ambition extends beyond our own programme. We aim to inspire and fund future gardens, while also advocating for a national policy shift: redirecting subsidies from low-welfare pig production to community-driven vegetable, fruit, and crop production.

This model transcends South Africa’s borders. It speaks to developing nations worldwide, where backyard pig farming, falsely perceived as a lifeline, instead wreaks havoc. Environmental degradation, animal suffering, compromised human health, and diminished food security are just the tip of the iceberg. Brutalized children and the looming threat of zoonotic diseases and epidemics paint a stark picture of a system ripe for transformation.

Graceful Garden is a brand that adds value to fruit and vegetables grown in the Pigs to Plants gardens, through production of branded veggie boxes, salad packs, stir fry packs, preserves, spices, sauces etc.  We intend to scale up the variety and quantity of products over the next two years to the point where the Pigs to Plants programme can sustain itself.  For this, we will raise funds to appoint a brand development manager and to purchase the necessary equipment and consumables.

Feeding Our Children!

Another exciting extension of Pigs to Plants is The National School Nutrition Programme. It is the government programme that provides one nutritious meal per day to all learners in primary and secondary schools serving our more vulnerable communities.

Unfortunately, the government’s understanding of nutrition has been aligned with the mainstream ideology, which has largely been shaped by the marketing teams of industries that are engrained in our societal structure. This means our children are fed low quality, bland meals that don’t contain enough nutrition for them to thrive.

Norah Hudson, executive chef, board member and sanctuary resident, has been working with Pigs to Plants and the local schools to pilot a feeding program that uses the surplus Pigs to Plants produce to serve up a tasty and wholesome meal. Teachers and Dept of Education officials at Emil Weder High School in Genadendal were the welcome recipients of a sample veggie curry which enhanced feeding scheme supplies with fresh vegetable and herbs harvested from the local, organic gardens that are a part of Pigs to Plants.