“As a sixth-generation Iowa farmer, Tanner Faaborg is all too aware that agricultural traditions are hard to shake. So when he set in motion plans to change his family’s farm from a livestock operation housing more than 8,000 pigs each year to one that grows lion’s mane and oyster mushrooms, he knew some of his peers might laugh at him. He just did not necessarily expect his brother to be chief among them.
“”My older brother has worked with pigs his entire adult life, managing about 70,000 of them across five counties,” Faaborg says. “But we got to a point where he went from laughing at me to saying: well, I guess maybe I’ll quit my job and help you out.””
I think he means it more to emphasize that he didn’t switch due to concern for animal welfare or environmental reasons, but rather that making the change was a good business decision and has been beneficial to them as a family. Rather than it being a sacrifice for ideology, so other farmers unhappy with the business model they felt trapped in can also get out. He finishes the quote saying something like ‘if we did it you can too.’