About 45 minutes north of Des Moines, Iowa, amid endless fields of corn, soybeans and hog and turkey barns, an Iowa family has transformed its former hog farm into an innovative specialty mushroom operation that supplies fresh produce and value-added goods throughout the state.
For three decades, the Faaborg family raised pigs in the nation’s leading pork-producing state. Like many industrial animal producers, operating within the system meant navigating high overhead costs, volatile markets and a contract structure that keeps many growers in a cycle of debt.
However, after years of vision, hard work and support from The Transfarmation Project, the family’s farm looks vastly different today. The former hog farm has been fully converted into 1100 Farm, a specialty mushroom operation, and the farm’s former manure lagoon has been remediated into a clean, freshwater pond…