Modest farms, 90 acres or less, dot the region here, most of them raising grains and vegetables, some the occasional sheep or cow. In the midst of this idyllic scene a few years back there appeared what residents now call “the pink invasion,” three huge hog barns each with 10,000 or more pigs in the fields that skirt the dike that protects the region from the Ijsselmeer, once known as the Zuiderzee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/world/europe/dutch-seek-space-for-a-growing-appetite-for-pork.html?_r=1