The vast majority of pork in Italy is produced intensively indoors, with smaller, outdoor pig units close to extinction
Franco Borrello’s black pigs roam freely in the bucolic foothills of eastern Sicily, where they graze and forage for acorns and wild roots in his 40 hectares (99 acres) of oak forest. Every year he loses several of them, as these ancient breeds of domesticated Sicilian pigs often sneak out from the metal enclosure.
Franco, 56, doesn’t care that much. “They practically live in the wild,” he says. “And it’s a price we’re willing to pay.”