Today let’s go to Lupa Osteria Romana, a high quality restaurant in the heart of New York City. The restaurant is serving delicious pork.
Where was it raised? On the Good Farm, half a continent away in Kansas.
Craig and Amy Good are the owners of Good Farm, the source of this specialty pork. Craig, the son of Don and Jane Good, grew up in Manhattan. He graduated from Manhattan High and earned a degree from Kansas State in animal science. Craig met and married Amy who earned her degree in what is now called health and human sciences.
After graduation, Craig worked for Fred Germann, who was an innovator in producing Specific Pathogen Free hogs. After five years, with Fred’s blessing, Craig and Amy moved to a farm near Olsburg and started producing breeding stock of their own.
“My passion is to make the next generation of production better than the last,” Craig said. He worked hard on improving the family’s swine herd and selling quality breeding stock to other pork producers.
Then the hog market crashed in1998. The market dried up for Craig’s boars and gilts.
“We went through a brief time of blaming others,” Craig said. “We could blame the packers or blame the corporations, but the blame game serves no purpose.”
Craig and Amy came up with possible alternative crops for their farm and approached K-State agricultural economist Vincent Amanor-Boadu. He looked at the alternatives but ultimately said to them: “Do what you’re good at, and that is raising hogs.”
