The art of fine swining: after years managing factory hog farms, Michael Jones bets his future on raising pigs that appeal to people's good taste.

• Author: Bailey, David
• Position: COVER STORY

Michael Jones fondly remembers his aunts and uncles playing with him on his grandparents' tenant farm in Whitakers, near Rocky Mount. "They'd take tobacco sticks and drive them into the ground and tie strings around them, and then they'd put Quaker State oil cans inside them and say, 'Michael, those are your pigs. Take care of them.' I was 4 years old, and that was my first farm set."

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For years after that, Jones dreamed about one day owning a pig farm. Most small-scale farmers inherit their land and equipment or ease into it, starting small and using money from their day jobs to subsidize losses. Not Jones, now 46. After two decades of raising 70,000 pigs on factory hog farms and, as a swine-husbandry expert, helping 70 other North Carolina farmers set up pasture-based operations, he took his own advice. Thirty-six years after first tending his oil cans, Jones put $50,000 down on 73 scrubby acres in Epsom, between Henderson and Louisburg. He was convinced that he could succeed raising pigs the old-fashioned way--outdoors. At the big factory farms, pigs live in cages, practically immobile. Jones' herd of about 150 can run around in the woods, gobble down acorns and persimmons, even have sex. Happy pigs, he insists, produce superior meat, which he can sell at a significant premium--$7 to $7.75 a pound for roasts and chops, compared with pork raised on an industrial scale, which routinely goes on special for less than $2 a pound in grocery stores.

Whistling through early-morning chores at Mae Farm, the linebacker-size Jones is as happy as his hogs. "My father's the first person in our family to graduate from high school, and I was the first to graduate from college. So I am only one generation removed from traditional Deep South poverty. On my father's side and mother's side, as far back as we have any knowledge, all the men were farmers. When it's a day like today and I'm out there working, I just say, 'It ain't no better than this.'"

He peddles most of the pork he sells--nearly $125,000 last year--at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh. Regular custom-ers rave about the quality of his cuts. "In culinary terms, I think there's absolutely a difference," says Toni Calcagno, a self-described foodie who drives across town from North Raleigh to buy his pork at least once a week. "The color, texture and flavor of the meat are better. The drippings and the sauces made from it are more flavorful." She is part of the burgeoning locavore movement that touts the benefits of buying local meat and produce from independent farmers. An indication of how pervasive this trend has become was a recent Newsweek cover story. "Divided We Eat" quoted one of Calcagno's favorite authors, sustainable-food advocate Michael Pollan, saying, "We have a system where wealthy farmers feed the poor crap and poor farmers feed the wealthy high-quality food." Some day, doomsayers say, farmland depleted by big ag's chemicals and overuse, coupled with rising petroleum prices, will create a monumental crisis. Small farms and traditional farming techniques will come to our rescue.

Jones agrees with Pollan about the poor feeding the wealthy. Though not exactly poor, he's anything but rich, despite his equity in the farm, a 4x4 John Deere tractor, two trucks, an SUV, five trailers, a disc and subsoiler, a bush hog and a front-end loader, not to mention fences, hog shelters, feeders and freezers, all of which he estimates would cost him $370,000 to replace. "People look at what farmers have, especially their tractors and combines, and say, 'Oh my God, you're rich.'" To prove his point, he sits down at the dining-room table in his double-wide trailer with a calculator and crunches some numbers. It costs him an average of $162 in feed alone to raise one pig to market size. Each breeder sow (he has 25) costs him $500 a year to maintain. His feed bill runs about $60,000 a year. Servicing the mortgage adds another $10,000. For the sixth year in a row, Mae Farm didn't turn a profit in 2010. "I just need a small improvement to get over the hump," he says.

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As he punches keys, the phone rings. It's Mule City Specialty Feeds Inc. in Benson calling about his latest shipment of feed. (His is a specialty blend, with oregano and molasses.) When he takes the call in another room, his wife, Suzanne, says, "We're struggling financially, and it's difficult. Most people we talk to are not paying a mortgage. Their fencing was already up...