Smallholder Pig Value Chain Development in Uganda
More milk, meat and fish by and for the poor (CGIAR Research Program on
Livestock and Fish)
Safe Food, Fair Food project
Danilo Pezo (d.pezo@cgiar.org)
Kristina Rösel (k.rosel@cgiar.org)
Presented at a stakeholder meeting, Wakiso, Uganda, 13 June 2012

Pig production- a dynamic and rapidly growing sector
in Uganda. In the past three decades increase from
0.19 to 2.3 million pigs (FAO, 2012).
Uganda: highest per capita consumption (3.4
kg/person/year) in the region -10 times increase
in the last 30 years, whereas beef is declining.

Inputs and Post-farm
Services Live-pig traders
Transporters
Pig breeder
Vet / Animal Prod
Farm Slaughterers
extension services Systems: Pork Butchers
Agrovet / feed shop Breeding Pork processors-
owners Growing/Fattening large and medium
Feed manufacturers Supermarkets/
and suppliers restaurants
Transporters- feed Consumers

A large informal subsector
• Backyard pig production, mainly
managed by women
• Few animals
• Free-range, tethered
• Small number of peri-urban
small-scale semi-intensive
• Uncoordinated trade &
transport
• Unsupervised slaughter, no
meat inspection in local
markets, road-side butchers
• Pork joints

A small formal subsector
• Medium-scale piggeries
• Urban slaughterhouses
• Processors
• Fresh Cuts (Uganda)
• Farmers Choice (Kenya)
• Outgrower scheme: Farmers Choice

At farm level
- Nutrition and feed (poor quality feeds,
seasonality)
- Swine health (ASF, tryps, lice, mange, helminths,
others)
- Genetics & breeding strategies (inbreeding)
- Husbandry & management (deficient corrals, if
available)
- Poor access to information and services
- Limited organizational strategies to achieve
economies of scale

At market level
- Organizational strategies
- Poor road infrastructure
- Limited market information, standards
(e.g., animals not weighed)
- Poor slaughter technologies and
infrastructure (by-product losses, and risk for
disseminating diseases)
- Minimal attention to disease control and
public health concerns (ASF, cysticercosis, blue
pork, others)
- Underdeveloped processing sector

• Improve efficiency to
lower production costs and
increase profitability
• Promote mechanisms for
reducing conflicts (pig
producers – neighbors)
• Institutional innovations
Production (service hubs for farmer
and groups, contract farming
Marketing schemes, etc.)
• Increase supply, reduce
wastage and promote value
addition
• Improve pork quality
• Efforts for vertical and
horizontal integration

• Early diagnosis,
management and
reduced disease risks
• National disease
Animal monitoring and
Health and surveillance
Food Safety • Improved public
health controls to
increase consumers
confidence - avoid
consumer scares

 „Majority of pork in
Kampala contaminated“
 with what?
 „Increasingly risky for
human consumption“
 consequences?
 „Loyal pork consumers
face running mad“
 per se?

 „ALL pork supplied in
Kampala for human
consumption is
contaminated“
 defamation, severerly
damaging a sector‘s
reputation
 „Threatening to close all
pork joints around the
city“
 risk of unemployment

“absence of structured safety inspection”
13

 At least 2 billion cases of diarrhea worldwide per
year (up to 90% attributed to food)
 1.5 million children under 5 die because of
diarrheal disease (80% in South Asia and Africa)
 Animal source foods are single most important
source of foodborne disease (FBD)
 Diseases other than diarrhea: brucellosis,
tuberculosis, cancer, epilepsy...
14

Cysts in the human brain causing epilepsy. If people ingest eggs of the pig tapeworm
(e.g. when not washing their hands before eating), these may develop in the brain, the
eye or other parts of the body: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/cysticercosis/biology.html
15

 Current food safety management seems to
be neither effective nor efficient
 Food safety communication trivializing
 tendency to adopt international food
quality standards and hazard-based
regulations without considering local
contexts
16

 Ban or promote?
 Zero-risk/ hazard-based policy?
„if in doubt, keep it out“
 Is there an acceptable level of risk?
 How can participation help improving
food safety?
17

Safe Food, Fair Food
（2008-2015）
risk-based approaches to improving food safety
and market access in informal markets in sub
Saharan Africa
18

 Based on evidence not perceptions
 Clear distinction between risk and
hazard!
 Hazard = anything that causes harm
 Risk = probability + consequences
 Risk analysis = structured approach
for evaluating and dealing with risks
19

Can it be present in food?
Hazard identification Can it cause harm?
What harm does it cause? How does it get from source to
How does harm depend on victim?
dose? What happens along the way?
Hazard characterization Exposure assessment
What is the harm?
What is its likelihood?
Risk characterization
Participatory
methods fit well
Risk management/
Risk communication
20

 Rapid assessment of food safety in
selected value chains: priority setting
 Action research on priority food safety
issues in these chains: pilot best-bet
interventions
 Enabling environments: engagement with
Regional Economic Communities (REC),
academia, private sector, vc stakeholders
21

Production Consumption
Peri-
Urban
urban
Rural Urban
Rural Rural

2. To develop
1. To identify
and pilot test a
market 3. To document,
set of
opportunities for communicate
integrated best-
pork in Uganda, and promote
bet innovations
and the multiple appropriate
for smallholder
factors evidence-based
pig production
preventing models for
and market
smallholder pig sustainable pro-
access for
producers to poor pig value
specific
exploit those chains
conditions in
opportunities
Uganda

1. Joint diagnosis and site selection with stakeholders
2. Value chain assessment for three smallholder pig
production , based on the variation in resources, market
access, and degree of intensification, and of participating
households
3. Evaluation of existing and potential feed resources in
terms of quality, quantity, seasonallity and resource
requirements
4. Prevalence surveys, risk and burden of disease
assessments for ASF, cysticercosis, and other endemic
diseases, and identification of risk mitigation, such as
diagnosis and vaccines
5. Assess demand for and validation of diagnostics and
vaccines for ASF and cysticercosis

Thank you!
25