‘We’re not hippies’: why these Iowa farmers swapped pigs for mushrooms

Faaborgs rail against oppressive industrial agricultural system with unexpected evolution into indy artisan food firm As a sixth-generation Iowa farmer, Tanner Faaborg is all too aware that agricultural traditions are hard to shake. So when he set in motion plans to change his family’s farm from a livestock operation housing more than 8,000 pigs each year to one that grows lion’s mane and oyster mushrooms, he knew some of his peers might laugh at him. He just did not necessarily expect his brother to be chief among them. “My older brother has worked with pigs his entire adult life, managing about 70,000 of them across five counties,” says Tanner. “But we got to a point where he went from laughing at me to saying: well, I guess maybe I’ll quit my job and help you out.” Continue reading...

By Tom Duggins