I SPENT a few decades running a small hog farm. That operation was anchored on raising porkers, which, before Big Agriculture, was the word used to describe pigs for fattening. Of the many animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption, the fattened hog, or porker, is the one with the least wasted parts — a fact not lost on abattoir workers. The upper part — specifically the ears — are coveted parts for sisig. The entrails are valued; dinuguan and chicharon are the choice food items prepared from them. Even the knuckles, which used to be the only throwaway parts, now have commercial value. Most animal raisers think the porker is the best animal to raise.
You won't starve even with just a backyard hog farm, but the work, in my case, was demanding and physically straining. Hog farms, big or small, are also magnets for venomous snakes because of the abundant water supply, the aroma of newly ground feeds and the quiet crevices where they can breed. It is not an undertaking for the lazybones, and falling under that description are most of our current-generation Filipino politicians, who do not need to sweat at all when they nurture their own porkers of the figurative kind.
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