Indigenous pig farming in rural areas of Sierra Leone: Practices, constraints and impact on livelihood

Poverty and inequality between urban and rural areas remained major social issues in Sierra Leone. These are drivers forcing rural people to engage in feasible livelihood options such as animal husbandry. The current study, that lasted for seven (7) months attempt to investigate pig farming in rural areas of Moyamba district, Sierra Leone. The overarching objectives were to assess the management practices, challenges, and livelihood impact of indigenous pig production. Two hundred and thirty (230) checklists were administered and interview sessions held for farmers from ten (10) randomly selected villages in Moyamba District, Sierra Leone. A total of 1123 pigs were recorded for which 66.5% were owned by women and 33.5% by men. It was observed that basic sanitary practices such as cleaning of the pen, provision of feeds and clean drinking water for pigs, castration and livestock disease management were lacking in the study area. This constitutes a great public health concern considering the link between animal and human diseases in contemporary history. Respondent noted income generation, food and cultural/religious benefits as pull factors for their engagement in the sector. Conversely, results indicates that the lack of credit facility (100%), high piglet mortality (92.2%), lack of or inadequate housing (86.5%), poor and inadequate feeding (86.1%), poor market facility (72.2%), animal cruelty (70.9%), persistence disease outbreaks (64.8%), intermittent theft (64.3%), poor or lack of treatment service (33.5%), lack of improved breeds (16.1%) and ineffective livestock extension services (4.3%) are the factors that undercut the productivity of pig farming in rural areas. The study has shown that there is need to scale up of livestock extension programs for rural areas through timely vaccination campaigns, sustained active case finding and capacity building of farmers to adopt good livestock management practice that will in turn sustain rural livelihood systems.