This pig farmer is “thekenyanpigfarmer” also known as Flavian Obiero, who came from Kenya, via Wingham (just outside Canterbury), to wind up running his own small council-owned tenant farm in Hampshire.
Having moved to the UK — aged 15 — from Kenya, to join his Dad and sister here, he’d planned to go to university to study veterinary medicine, but having managed to not get the A-level grades he needed, then took a year out to get some work experience before heading off to study for a degree in Animal Management at Sparsholt College. After completing a week’s placement on a farm, he was offered a job and ended up working there for this gap year and doesn’t seem to have stopped since.
With his fiancé, Nikki, he is now farming Tamworth pigs which he calls his “ninjas” (for their ability to escape fenced fields as much as ror the magic that they work)
because they are good at rootling, which helps aerate the farm’s compacted soils. “I use them instead of a tractor,”
which you can see in his Before & After shots of the effects on the topsoil
along with some sheep and ex-dairy goats on 61 acres (25 hectares) of mixed pasture and woodland, supplying their meat to local customers. If that’s not enough work him/them, they also run a spit-roast business, providing roast meats for weddings, festivals and other events. They’re also hoping to add some pasture-fed chickens (mainly for eggs) to the animal mix and to start making charcuterie.
Previously he’d worked on a mixed farm in Hampshire with pigs, sheep, beef, arable and a farm shop, managing 110-sow (female pigs) from farrow to finish and before that, he managed a 130-sow (female pigs) indoor pig unit, consisting of predominantly Large White x Landrace and a few Large White x Welsh breeds in Plumpton, East Sussex which sounds very like the same type of farm that my Dad managed up and down Essex and Kent farms winding up at Ringwould/Kingsdown.
As well as being an unfairly photogenically gorgeous human, he’s also a huge role model for POC; a group who’ve traditionally not found either farming or the countryside very welcoming. Tell me, when was the last time you saw anyone who wasn’t white running a farm or a butcher’ shop or even simply ambling around the countryside? The work he’s doing is vital to the vitality of the farming community. And he’s smart as well. Witness this piece. Take the time to give him a. follow on Twitter or Insta.