Hurray for Stepney City Farm pigs doing their bit for the climate

Karen Luyckx from The Pig Idea takes us on a pig feeding tour at Stepney City Farm.

Yesterday I turned up for my first stint of open volunteering at Stepney City Farm. How wonderful to be doing health checks of soft happy bunnies and cheeky ferrets. But the best bit was to witness the food waste pyramid in full action.

Stepney farm gets regular donations of surplus fruit and veg from market traders which are used for topping up animal feed. In this case however the bananas they had been given were still perfect to eat for humans too. So ten bananas were happily munched during the volunteer break, and another ten were peeled and given to Stepney’s two pigs together with some apples. One of them got so excited by the sight of those bananas that she knocked over one of the volunteers in her eagerness to get to them. (Don’t worry, aside from muddy wellies and jeans, no harm was done)

We also prepared yummy pig porridge: brewers’ spent grains and okara (by-product from tofu-making) mixed with whey (by-product from cheese-making). What a joy to watch them eating with an eagerness and enthusiasm like only pigs can do. But more importantly, these lovely Stepney City Farm pigs are doing their bit for the climate because they don’t eat virgin crops like rainforest soya or barley. And you don’t need to take our word for it: just check out an important study by Cambridge University published this week.