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Inside the dilapidated hog barn—a dark metal structure whose roof now sags dangerously close to the cramped quarters that once held hundreds of tightly packed pigs—a leftover fan hangs from a beam.The faded logo reads "Profit-Maker."Milne scoffs at the irony. The failed Northern Pork factory meat operation never actually made money, she explained, and wouldn't have stayed open for as many years as it did without hefty subsidies from government.Now it just so happens that the abandoned site—a 260-acre lot outside of Hay River—serendipitously opened itself up for lease just as Milne's dream of a permanent school facility began to grow roots with a massive influx of funding last year.The municipal government gave NFTI the go-ahead to use the area earlier this month, after the farm school was given $2 million by the federal government last summer during Prime Minister Stephen Harper's annual Northern tour. In its pilot years, the project also received support from the territorial government's own Growing Forward funding initiative, which supports community agriculture in the NWT.In the spirit of regeneration, Milne now plans to replace the derelict symbol of unsustainable farming with NFTI's new farm campus, complete with greenhouses, livestock grazing areas, outdoor gardens, and hardy orchards, along with classrooms and housing for staff and students.
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Tromping through mud at the old hog barn lot, Milne openly imagines pigs roaming the area as the naturally forest-dwelling creatures they are, helping to restore and fertilize the soil, just as the institute's two existing sows have done back at her own farm, the current home base for NFTI. There, two bulky, black Berkshires—named Sophie and, perhaps more aptly, Greasy Bacon—have as a duo managed to transform an entire muskeg, or boreal swamp, into usable growing land by rooting up tree stumps and churning up the ground.
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