Pigs are environmental engineers, not architects of destruction

A VIEW FROM THE FARM

- Adam Henson

The snout is what it's all about. You might think that the outstanding feature of the average pig is its tail, its trotters or even its oink. But, as any livestock farmer will tell you, a pig's nose is the most remarkable structure and does much more than simply snort and sniff. Albeit very noisily.

In fact, a pig’s nose can perform several vital jobs simultaneously. In technical terms, it is an extraordinary olfactory organ that can detect and decode scents with unbelievable sensitivity and precision. It's thought a pig’s sense of smell is 2,000 times stronger than a human’s and because it's far more complex than its eyesight or any of the other senses, you could say that sniffing and snuffling is how swine ‘see’ the world around them. It’s no wonder hogs have been used to hunt for truffles since Roman times.