Farm of the Week: Rare breed pigs, butchery and charcuterie on the Swinton Estate in the Dales

“We farm on the Swinton Estate,” said Rowan, who grew up on her parents’ smallholding also in the village and still uses that land too. She has just 12 acres in all, which was fine initially for her fledgling farming enterprise, but said she now has much more land available for her pigs through a new idea launched this year by the estate.

“We took on the farm in 2017. It had been a typical small Dales dairy farm that had stone buildings, which just didn’t suit modern agriculture.

“Mark Cunliffe Lister who runs the estate with his family had a vision to develop the buildings here at Waterfall to have a butchery, which we now have, and to start processing the meat from farms on the estate to provide for the estate’s hotel.

“The Swinton Estate have launched a project called Estate to Plate and are encouraging farmers with livestock on the estate to sell to the hotel directly.

“I’m working with R&J Butchers in Kirkby Malzeard as part of the Estate to Plate project, and we are just starting our new butchery at Waterfall. It is all about showing that reduction in food miles and putting local food on the plate, and hopefully it will also bring about what was talked about 5 years ago.

Rowan has already created a name for herself in the rare breed pig world and came close to winning the top award last year for the work she has done so far.

“Last year we were runners up in the Conservation Pig Breeder of the Year category in the British Pig Association Awards, largely for what we’ve been doing to help and conserve the Large Black breed. We have British Saddlebacks and Gloucester Old Spots that are also pedigree rare breeds and we’re trying to create a sustainable business to promote all of them.

“By people more regularly eating the meat they produce a more sustainable market is created, which means that more can be bred. This is what helps protect them as a breed moving forward.

Rowan has grown her herd to 25 breeding pigs, made up of 21 sows and 4 boars and said she is hopeful of expanding the herd to 50 sows in the future, which could now be possible with another new project run by Swinton Estate’s woodland team.

“We are more widely known for our Saddlebacks because that’s what we generally take to enter at agricultural shows and because of the trade we have increased with other pig breeders. Our current sow numbers run to 10 Saddlebacks, 6 Large Blacks and 5 Gloucesters.

“A lot of our Saddlebacks go to Scotland. We’ve been supporting a traditional pig sale at Dumfries Auction Mart sending some up as stores and some as breeding pigs where we have topped the sales regularly and as a result we now have buyers from Scotland coming direct to us to buy Saddleback breeding boars. We have won all sorts of shows and sales up there, which has been great to have traditional pigs really holding their own in a ring in a commercial competitive way.

“This summer we’ve been working with the Swinton Estate forestry team. We’ve had pigs in their woodland. They’re eating all the grass and bracken in the woodland where the trees are not quite so densely planted.

“The forestry manager has been putting together a regenerative plan, planting a lot more trees on the estate. There are a lot of changes coming to agriculture and one of those is regeneration through agri-forestry. The pigs have been a success and he’s very much wanting them to be part of the woodland management going forward.

Rowan said she can only start increasing numbers if the market is there to support greater stock and that’s where she is hoping the launch of a charcuterie will help.

“I was very fortunate when I was awarded a grant from the Yorkshire Agricultural Society in 2019 to learn how butcher pigs and make charcuterie. I wouldn’t have been able to consider this without their support.

“We now fatten to bacon weight and have started to develop recipes for chorizo and salami that we’re hoping to get out there next year. We have had some really good feedback from the chefs I’ve been working with to try and use all of the pig. We are members of the Pedigree Pork Scheme, so all our fattening pigs are traceable through their pedigrees and have that stamp of quality.

Rowan is also launching Nidderdale Hog Roasts for 2023.

“The woodland scheme gives us a lot more production space and ticks the environment box, but you can only have more pigs if you have a market to sell to. That’s why we are going into the hog roast business for weddings and special events.

Rowan also has a small herd of British Alpine goats under her Maythorn prefix and uses the goats’ milk to feed the piglets.

“It is one way of offsetting high feed prices. Some of our first homebred kids will be milking next year. I might try making soap from their milk eventually, but we are concentrating on the pigs right now.

Education and a pop-up farm shop are also on Rowan’s agenda.

“We’ve a bit of work to be done before then but I’d like to run some training days, helping others learn how to smoke bacon and make some sausages. Investment is being put in by Swinton Estate into improving facilities at Waterfall.

“I’d like to develop ideas on children’s education. We have taken our animals to Springtime Live at the Great Yorkshire Showground and during the Great Yorkshire Show we had goats in the Discovery Zone, but I’d like to do so much more.

Rowan said there is still a stigma attached to the woman being seen as the farmer.

“I’m very much the farmer. We were talking about the assumption that the woman is not the farmer in a relationship, at the Women in Farming Conference at the Pavilions just last week. People still assume that my husband Tom is the farmer and although we are very much a partnership now, he had no farming background when we started.

“Tom hadn’t set his hand on a sheep or a pig until he met me. I was lambing and I dragged him along.

“We’ve been married 10 years and he’s quite good now, this year we had two pigs in the same class at the Great Yorkshire Show and he took the championship with a pig of ours called Sprout!

Rowan and Tom have two children - William and Pippa who take part in the young handlers classes.