Eric Stonestreet Sets the Record Straight About Real Pork

(National Pork Board and the Pork Checkoff)

“That will happen when pigs fly.”

No one wants to hear that phrase when they are hopeful something will come to fruition. But Eric Stonestreet, former pig farmer and award-winning actor, is out to redefine these commonly misunderstood phrases as they relate to modern pig farming.

In the new “Rural Dictionary” series of videos starring Stonestreet, he argues “when pigs fly” means something that’s already happening. 

“Modern pig farmers embrace new technology every day with apps that control barn climate. They use cleaning robots, AI, and they're even developing facial recognition with the intention of raising healthy animals,” Stonestreet explains in one of five new videos from the Pork Checkoff.

In true Stonestreet style, he uses humor to drive home important truths about modern pig farming in a way that people can relate to and understand.

Back to His Roots
Spending time on a modern pig farm was an incredible experience, Stonestreet says. He knew pig farming was high-tech, but to see all the advances in person was even more meaningful. 

“I’ve never had to shower in and shower out of a pig farm before and wear booties everywhere I went (even before I got to the barn),” Stonestreet says. “I joked that I’ve had the great benefit and pleasure of visiting very sick children across this nation and I felt more clean and more sanitized going into the hog barn than I have going into hospitals across America.”

Being back on a farm was a full-circle moment, he says. It was a chance to come back to his roots, where he learned responsibility and the value of taking care of something else beyond his three-foot perimeter.

As an actor in Los Angeles, he’s seen a major disconnect with people about where their food comes from.

“We could make all kinds of guesses on why that disconnect exists,” he says. “I think it really boils down to most people don’t care. Most people don’t have the desire and knowledge to learn how things end up on the table.”

That hard reality makes him even more grateful for his upbringing.

“I had the benefit of growing up with someone who decided, ‘You're going to learn how to do that.’ I think it would serve everyone wonderfully if they had to spend a week on a farm getting up at 4:30 in the morning to have breakfast, so you can be out by 5, and then be out working until the sun goes down,” he says.

Stonestreet believes people would be “absolutely astonished” about what goes into a day's work on a pig farm (or any farm). 

“I think it's because people don't really think about it. It's either not convenient to think about it or it might be too hard to think about it,” he says.

Experience Builds Empathy 
From his perspective, exposing people to what farmers do day-in and day-out is important and similar to what he does as an actor every day. 

“That's how we change people's minds and how we open people's hearts ... we let them in to experience it,” Stonestreet says. “In my world of comedy, I open people's minds and hearts and eyes with something funny, and then they're like, ‘Well, now I'm curious about that.’ I think apathy is where the disconnect comes from.”

Stonestreet is quick to point out that although he loves pigs and farming, he learned early in life that being a pig farmer was not going to be his life-long vocation.

“My dad always said I could watch people work all day long,” Stonestreet laughs. “I own that, but I’m thankful that I learned what my vocation was not. It allowed me to go find my space in the world and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Having the opportunity to bring that back to something I’m clearly interested in, and love has been such an exciting opportunity for me.”

Watch his first video here, "When Pigs Fly."

More from Farm Journal's PORK:

Modern Mythbuster: Eric Stonestreet Sets Out to Bust Pig Farming Myths

The Secret is Out

 

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