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Farmer Bill McCollum had a point: Sometimes proponents of sustainable agriculture are more concerned about the philosophy of eating local and organic foods than they are about the practical matter of making money. On the other extreme, McCollum said, is "rat race" industrial agriculture that can devalue family farms and leave their owners with an increasingly shrinking piece of the economic pie.

Massey Creek Farms, a Madison meat animal farm owned by McCollum and his son, Garland, seeks to avoid both extremes by making a profit while being socially and environmentally responsible. The McCollums are part of Rockingham County effort to promote locally grown foods and I took a tour of their farm yesterday.

What I found interesting about Madison Creek Farms was its journey from a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) to a virtually entire free-range environment (they supplement with some feed). The McCollums started their commercial hog business in 1989 and raised as many as 25,000 pigs a year in 6 large buildings. The pigs were transported during their youth to farms in the Midwest to finish growing and were later processed and distributed to grocery stores all over the country.

Bill McCollum compared the contract arrangements with integrators to indentured servantry.

"It's stressful and not something you necessarily want to do," he said. "In bad times, even though you have a contract, you might not get paid on time. There's a tremendous amount of stress in doing that and I'm tired of it."

Last year, the McCollums ceased their commercial operation and now raise on pasture about 200 pigs, which root and wallow in red dirt between three of the six buildings. (I would have taken pictures but my camera battery died.)

"They love it out here," Garland said. "When they first came out they were running and just seemed like they were having a good time."

Massey Creek Farms also raise pastured lambs and chickens for eggs. This is the first year they have sold processed lamb at farmers markets in Rockingham County and Greensboro, and they plan to add meat chickens (broilers) and heritage turkeys next year.

I asked the McCollums if they felt guilty about the loss of productivity in raising 200 pigs versus 25,000.

Garland responded: "There's a lot of ways to measure productivity and one way to measure it is, is it productive for me? We were producing a lot of pigs but not in a way that was sustainable for our families. If there were more people raising pigs like we do then we could maintain some of that productivity."

He added: "We are more productive from our standpoint because we're getting higher value per animal."

Garland also said the farm depends less on fossil fuels. They used to spend $20,000 a year on liquid propane gas and another $20,000 a year on electricity. Now they spend $0 on propane and about $1,200 a year on electricity. In fact, Garland said, electricity use dropped so quickly that a representative from Duke Energy visited the farm to find out if there was a problem.

Still, the McCollums must charge higher prices for their meat because volume is much lower. The success of their experiment depends on the willingness of meat buyers in the region to pay those higher prices.

"For this local-sustainable agriculture-slow food movement to ultimately work, it has to be able to provide a reasonable income for the farmer," Garland said.