Pigs as Partners: Exploring Livestock-Driven Pasture Restoration and Silvopasture Transition at Three Square Farm

A significant portion of farmland in the Northeast is undergoing land transfer to new farmers like ourselves, driven by factors such as declining industries, an aging farm workforce, and challenges in farm succession (Hamilton, 2010; Ostrom et al., 2010). Consequently, many new farmers are tasked with managing and restoring various types of landscapes, ranging from historically underused pastures to cleared land previously wooded, all with the aim of contributing to farm viability and enhancing local food sovereignty.

In New England, where temperate climates and high precipitation cycles dominate, the management of land in varying stages of succession presents unique challenges. Particularly, many newly acquired farms contain pastures that have been underutilized and have become unsuitable to pasturing, with species composition veering towards early successional forest stands. 

In the process of  reclaiming and restoring pasture, we, like many others, are exploring ways to integrate resilience to climate change within our management practices. Trees are central to this effort, offering benefits such as shade to improve livestock well-being, storm protection, water storage, and enhanced soil and nutrient retention. On our farm, we are examining how to implement silvopasture strategies on both historic pastures and newly cleared areas. This includes managing the density of existing trees and incorporating a wider range of species and structural diversity to create more sustainable and productive systems.

However, this restoration process can be both daunting and expensive, with limited accessible resources available for new farmers undertaking such transitions. For instance, the lack of access to necessary equipment (e.g., brush hogs) forces many to seek alternative methods of land management. One such method, widely promoted in farming circles, involves the use of pigs. Pigs are renowned for their ability to disrupt plant communities through foraging behavior, which, when managed thoughtfully, can facilitate the conversion of degraded pastures into more diverse ecosystems (Tisdell, 2013).

Pigs, alongside forage seeding, have been suggested as a tool for renovating pastures and converting landscapes for rotational grazing. By simultaneously supporting another farm enterprise (pork production), this approach offers an avenue toward enhanced food sovereignty. However, concerns about the potential adverse effects of pigs on soil quality, biodiversity, and tree integrity persist, especially if their management is poorly adapted to the resource base (Tisdell, 2013; Murphy, 2014).

Although there is a lot of interest by farmers to use pigs as a part of pasture management and renovation, we have found very little data concerning the short and long term impacts of this management practice on working farms. Farmers deserve to make informed decisions regarding if pigs can enhance farm viability through pasture renovation. If yes, at which temporal and spatial scale they are most effective at maintaining soil resources and biodiversity. Essentially, it is important for there to be widely available, regionally specific, data for farmers on how soil, trees, and forages may respond to the impacts of pigs.

In this project, we propose tracking above and belowground transitions of one of the historic pastures dealing with woody encroachment on our farm by trying pigs as a pasture renovation tool by thoughtfully rotating them through different paddocks. To do so, we will use soil tests, vegetation surveys, and aerial photography to track changes after raising pigs on various new paddocks. This project will address a number of concerns for farmers including forecasting costs of using this management style, conservation of soil and protection of farm resources, and improved productivity. We feel our experiences can inform best management practices and forecast risk and rewards for farmers interested in using pigs to achieve silvopasture systems in the Northeast with valuable implications for food sovereignty as producers can reconceptualize what options are available for them to make use of diverse landscapes.