10:30am
Room 2, Foyer upper floor
Pigs are woodland animals, they thrive below the treeline and are one of our only domesticated keystone species. These incredible ecosystem engineers have the ability to transform landscapes, creating opportunities for a whole range of plants and wildlife. Yet despite this almost all pork consumed in the UK is produced in indoor systems and to a very poor standard.
In this session David will show you around Brodoclea Woodland Farm, home to 160 Mangalitsa pigs. He will cover everything from grazing systems, handling, feeding, fencing and infrastructure to how the pigs help increase biodiversity and build resilience in the woodland. He will also cover the practical, economic and systemic challenges to farming in this way.
This session is aimed to help you dig your snout below the surface of sustainable pig farming for the first time and uncover if pigs could have a place on your smallholding.
David Carruth, The Woolly Pig Company
David Carruth is the sustainable farming manager for the Future Forest Company and helps run The Woolly Pig Company. David is an agroforester and farms a 430 acre woodland above Dalry in North Ayrshire.
David grew up on two family run dairy farms in the heart of Renfewshire. He went on to study environmental science and work in conservation and woodland habitat creation before inevitably ending up back in agriculture.
Last year he won Scotland’s finest Woodland award for Farm Woodland.