Vann Bennett aims to raise pigs on his 30-acre property near Hillsborough, North Carolina. But first he's got to convince a county commissioner to go along with the idea—not because zoning is an issue but because the commissioner happens to be his wife, and Bernadette Pelissier isn't convinced that pigs are a good idea.

“She doesn't want to be a pig-sitter when I'm off giving seminars,” says the part-time farmer and full-time scientist, who is an HHMI investigator at Duke University Medical Center.

If Bennett can find an alternate caretaker, the pigs will live in a post-and-beam pig pen—near the chicken coop—and dine on organic leftovers, including vegetables from Bennett's four-acre garden.

“I try to live sustainably,” he says, “to grow as much of my own food as I can.”

		Bennett's Backyard: See Vann Bennett's chicken coop.

Bennett, who studies membrane proteins called ankyrins, takes issue with the country's current model of food production and does everything he can to raise his own food. “Profit is the overall guiding principle, and that means the way we treat animals is appalling,” he says. “If you knew how the hens were treated, you'd never buy eggs in a grocery store.”

He gets his eggs from his own hens—a dozen chickens from three heritage breeds: Jersey Giant, Araucana, and Dark Cornish. These older varieties have more genetic diversity than newer, more highly selected breeds of chickens used by commercial producers to supply most grocery chains. These so-called “monoculture” chickens can lay more than 300 eggs a year. Bennett's hens lay fewer eggs, but with much more variety—from the standard brown egg to the lovely blue-green eggs of the Araucanas.

Monoculture chickens raised for meat are highly selected for certain traits, such as thighs so muscular the birds can barely walk, Bennett says. “I just want a chicken that can run around and be happy.”

Photos: Jeffrey McCullough

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