Iowa Family Transforms Former Hog Barns into Specialty Mushroom Farm

In central Iowa, the Faaborg family has converted their former industrial hog operation into 1100 Farm, a specialty mushroom enterprise. The project represents a significant shift from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to sustainable agriculture, aided by technical and financial resources from The Transfarmation Project, an initiative of Mercy for Animals.

Inside one of the retrofitted 200-foot-long barns, Tyler Faaborg tends to shelves of lion’s mane and other fungi. The family markets the mushrooms as tinctures, coffee blends, and flavored salts. The name 1100 Farm honors the facility’s history, as each of the two connected buildings once housed approximately 1,100 hogs.

Katherine Jernigan, who directs The Transfarmation Project, noted that the organization focuses on helping industrial animal farmers move toward sustainable practices such as mushroom cultivation, diversified vegetable farming, and agroecology. The program provides open-source blueprints for repurposing existing pig, poultry, and dairy infrastructure, a strategy Jernigan highlighted as a key differentiator.

The Iowa location serves as the second demonstration hub for the project in the United States, following a similar site at a former chicken farm in North Carolina. The purpose is to allow other farmers to observe the transition firsthand and access collected data regarding costs, labor hours, and product margins. The Faaborgs are compensated $216,000 over a four-year contract for sharing this operational data.

The decision to leave hog farming stemmed from a combination of financial strain and environmental concerns. Rand Faaborg, who started with a few market hogs in the 1980s, eventually scaled up through contract feeding arrangements. After borrowing $400,000 to build two new barns with automated feeding and manure removal systems, the family spent 12 years paying off the debt. Rand reported that while the operation was initially profitable, the labor demands were extreme, and profits dropped by two-thirds over time due to the proliferation of large CAFOs across the state.

Tanner Faaborg, who conceived the transition several years ago, described feeling conflicted about his lifestyle. While he worked with sustainability nonprofits in Des Moines on climate action plans, he returned to the farm to manage pig chores. He cited the environmental impact of manure pits, which release methane—a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide—as well as the broader decline of rural communities due to industrial agriculture expansion.

The family raised approximately 8,000 hogs annually, producing roughly one million gallons of liquid manure. With the new mushroom operation, the Faaborgs are producing their own substrate blocks, composed of 50% soy hulls and 50% hardwood pellets, which reduces costs compared to purchasing them externally. They have completed the conversion of half one barn and plan to scale production further based on the success of their pilot project.