Small-scale pig farming outside intensive confinement systems can achieve excellent welfare outcomes while producing high-quality pork. Understanding what high-welfare pig production looks like guides both consumer choices and advocacy.
High-welfare pig farming demonstrates that the welfare problems in industrial pork production are not inevitable but are consequences of specific management choices. Outdoor and extensive systems with enriched environments achieve welfare outcomes that indoor intensive systems cannot match because they allow expression of natural behaviors that are fundamental to pig wellbeing. Supporting high-welfare pig farming creates market space for producers who invest in animal welfare.