Participatory assessment of animal health constraints and
husbandry practices in the pig production system in three districts
of Uganda
This document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License May 2013
Michel M. Dione, Emily A. Ouma, Kristina Rosel, Lawrence Mayega, Gideon Nadiope, David Kiryabwire and Danilo Pezo
Introduction
 Pork has become increasingly important in Uganda. Whereas pork accounted for only
1-2 % of the 11-12 kg/yr per capita meat consumption in the 1960s, it now accounts for
at least one third of the current 10 kg/yr.
 Pigs help both rural and urban households to improve livelihood security by
diversifying income and also serve as a source of cash in times of need.
 Several constraints have been identified along the pig value chains as limiting
productivity factors.
Objectives
 To identify animal health and management constraints and opportunities for
intervention in the smallholder pig value chains in Uganda.
Methodology
 Focus group discussions were conducted on stratified random samples, based on sex,
of about 1400 pig farmers in 35 villages in Masaka, Kamuli and Mukono districts using
a semi-qualitative interview checklist.
 Quantitative data, such as proportions and disease parameters were obtained through
group consensus.
 Findings were further triangulated with secondary data during the exercise.
Results
 Pig housing are dominated by tethering (66 %) and free range/scavenging systems (17
%) in rural settings; 66 % and 87 % of farmers confine the pigs in houses in peri-urban
and urban settings respectively (pictures 1-4)
 African swine fever is the first cause of pig mortality with epidemics commonly
occurring during the dry season (table 1, figure 1). Worms and ecto-parasites namely
mites, lice, midges, ticks and jiggers are endemic, which along with poor nutrition, lead
to stunted growth which causes reduced market value of pigs.
 Diarrhea and malnutrition are common in piglets and are associated with poor hygiene
and feeding, respectively. Swine erysipelas, and Foot and Mouth-Disease are sporadic,
and can occur once or twice a year (figure 1).
 Indigenous treatments are sometime used in replacement of commercial drugs. These
treatments include human urine and decoctions of local herbs for African swine fever
and the use of disposed engine oil or tobacco extracts for ecto-parasites.
 93% of farmers declare practicing deworming of their pigs; 37% practice ecto-parasite
spraying and 77% castrate their pigs (figure 2).
 The main constraints affecting animal health as identified by farmers are poor housing
and feeding, limited coverage of veterinary services, faked drugs and lack of knowledge
on piggery management.
 Some of the actions already attempted by farmers to overcome those constraints are
the organization of groups for capacity building. However, they believe that the
government, as well as R&D institutions, should assist them in improving facilities and
management by providing training on better pig husbandry practices and health, and
helping to get access to funding to enable them to improve farm infrastructure, i.e.,
corrals, drainage.
"The livestock-human-wildlife interface”
Challenges in Animal Health and Production in urban/peri-urban and extensive farming/conservation systems
AITVM 14th International Conference-25-29-August 2013, Johannesburg, South Africa
Acknowledgments
To IFAD –EU for providing the funds for the SPVCD project,
Veterinary officers of Masaka, Mukono and Kamuli, and the VEDCO
staff in Kamuli, the NAADS, FGD facilitators, and farmers who
participated in the FGDs.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
Rainfall
Mite
Lice
Jigger
Midge
Ticks
African swine fever and parasites together with poor husbandry
practices and housing represent limiting factors in the pig
production system in Uganda; therefore, there is a need for
building capacity of technology service providers and farmers to
tackle these problems. These primary findings will support the
identification of best-bet interventions for improving animal
health in the smallholder pig value chains in Uganda.
*Swine erysipelas, anemia, ticks, jiggers, heat stress, undiagnosed diseases usually related to sudden death
Table 1: List of priority diseases in the pig sector in Uganda
Figure 1: Seasonal variation in parasites occurrence
Contact: Michel Dione, DVM, PhD
Email: M.Dione@cgiar.org
Disease Rural-Rural (n=170) Rural-Urban (n=90) Urban-Urban (n=80)
Morbidity
(%)
Mortality
(%)
Case fatality
(%)
Morbidity
(%)
Mortality
(%)
Case fatality
(%)
Morbidity
(%)
Mortality
(%)
Case fatality
(%)
ASF 29.8 23.1 77.5 43.1 31.8 73.6 15.8 7.5 47.5
worms 55.1 12.0 21.9 35.0 5.0 14.4 22.3 1.8 8.3
mange 16.1 1.9 11.5 14.8 1.1 7.5 14.0 0.4 2.8
lice 9.8 0.3 3.6 7.5 0.0 0.6 1.1 0.0 0.3
midge 1.3 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.0 0.3
diarrhea 5.8 1.3 4.7 4.6 0.7 5.4 5.6 0.5 4.2
malnutrition 2.4 0.1 2.6 3.6 0.0 0.9 4.3 0.1 3.2
FMD 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.5 0.0 0.1
Others* 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.8 0.2 4.9 0.3 0.0 0.8
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
deworming castration servicing vitamin injection parasites spray tagging ion injection extra teat removal
RR
RU
UU
Figure 2: Proportions of farmers and their husbandry practices
1 2
3 4
Pictures (1-4): Housing typology in the pig production systems: (1) tethered pig; (2) scavenging
piglets; (3) raised house; (4) not raised housed