Striving to preserve rare breed of pig
A farmer in Cornwall is playing her part in a unique conservation plan.
ACORNWALL farmer is helping to save a rare breed of pig from extinction. The wild and woolly Mangalitza pig is slowly being brought back from the brink with the help of a small group of breeders connected with the British Pig Association (BPA).
Michelle Burley-Hodge, who has a farm near Perranwell, is among those who are helping to support the survival of the bloodline of the Hungarian breed. She first introduced three Mangalitza pigs – two Abbotess gilts and a Curly boar – to her family farm in 2008.
The pigs were among the first to breed in Cornwall and one of them continues to roam and root around in the farm’s woodland to this day.
Ronnie, the 14-year-old curlyhaired pig, is the UK’s oldest living breeding Mangalitza pig on record, according to the BPA. Since stepping her trotters over Michelle’s farm gate, Ronnie has played a key role in saving her own bacon.
“When I started [breeding Mangalitza pigs], there were really low numbers in the UK. Ronnie’s bloodline, Abbotess, was really in decline – I think the Abbotess bloodline went down to less than 15 in the UK,” Michelle said.
Michelle, along with a small group of dedicated Mangalitza pig breeders, realised the rare breed was at risk as it had a very low level of genetic diversity. And so, in the spring of 2020, with help from the BPA, a plan was hatched.
Lisa Hodgson, the BPA’S breed representative for the Mangalitza, said: “We asked ourselves what we could do to help out and save the breed, and so we set up The Great Manga Move. There were several of us dotted around the country, and we decided we needed certain bloodlines in certain areas.
“I was the only one who had the Delight bloodline and if a disease got on to my farm and we lost that pig, that bloodline would be gone forever. So, we all met up at Sedgemoor Auction Centre in Somerset and we did our swaps and took our pigs home. They are now at the stage where they are ready to breed to keep their bloodlines going.”
Although the team of breeders was successful in improving the population of Mangalitza pigs in the UK, it recognised there still were not enough bloodlines to stop the breed from dying out. Thus, a new mission to find more genetic material began.
Lisa explained: “We looked all over the world to see where we could get more pigs from and then we found some in Austria. We contacted the breeder there and said: ‘Can we have some pigs from you? This is the bloodlines we have, what can you do so that they aren’t related?’
“So we’re working with him and hopefully at the end of June, beginning of July, we’ll get these pigs across to my quarantine facility in Yorkshire. Michelle will then come up and get her pigs and the other breeders that are involved will come up and get theirs and hopefully we will save the breed in the UK.”
Michelle explained why saving the breed was so important. “They’re really hardy, they can live out all year round and you haven’t got to worry about them getting sunburn or worry about them eating different things,” she said. “They are just really natural, everything about them is totally different to a normal pig – they’ve got their own character, their temperament is different, they taste different. Their meat is marbled – they’re quite a fatty pig but it’s called ‘the golden fat’ and it’s really good for you.”
The Mangalitza pig is a favourite for farmers like Michelle because they roam more than breeds bred in a factory-type environment. However, what really sets them apart from commercial pigs is their flavoursome fat, to the point that they are starting to gain popularity among top chefs, too.
Michelle’s Mangalitza pigs got a taste of the limelight when Marcus Wareing purchased two of Ronnie’s offspring and gave them their big break on television.
However, the MasterChef judge “didn’t say where they came from” and Michelle believes this is part of the problem as to why the mouthwatering pork has not taken off yet in Cornwall.
“Cornwall is so tucked away,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve got that many Michelin Star restaurants like they’ve got in London. They’ve got these big restaurants that want rare breeds that are free range – we haven’t really got that here. What restaurant would you knock on the door for and ask: ‘Do you want this really fancy meat?”
“It’s hard because the problem is they aren’t really a known pig yet, so you don’t get a massive following. A lot of people stick to what they know – white pigs – and they are happy to stay like that.”
While it may appear to be counterintuitive to eat a rare breed, it is in fact the only way to save unique animals like the Mangalitza pig. When people stop consuming a breed, farmers stop breeding that animal, which is how the Mangalitza almost disappeared from the face of the earth in the first place.
‘They are just really natural, everything about them is totally different to a normal pig’ MICHELLE BURLEY-HODGE