The Ministry of Agriculture has put into place measures to boast production of pork in the country, which currently stands at only 433, 26 per year and is well below demand.
This was disclosed by the Director of Animal Production.
He said that the piggery industry is facing challenges such as lack of slaughter houses, high feed prices and unorgarnised market channels.
On how they are tackling the challenges, he said that plans are under way to mandate the Ministry of Local Government to construct municipal abattoirs for pigs in some areas around the country.
Besides that, he said that there are plans to create a revolving fund, which will be incorporated into the Livestock Advisory Center to ensure that pig feeds are sold at subsidized prices as is the case with livestock feeds.
He said that farmers are also encouraged to form associations to tackle problems such as pork prices per unit. They are also encouraged to buy and sell stock of high genetic potential and that the Department of Animal Health is buying pigs of high genetic potential from South Africa breeding them and selling small pigs to farmers at subsidized prices.
Further to that the Department provides farmers with training courses in basic pig husbandry and day to day running of pig farm. There has been complaints that the government is annually pumping millions of pula into the cattle industry by way of providing free vaccination, assisting farmers drill boreholes for their cattle amongst other things whilst the same is not done to other industries such as piggery small stock, chickens and ostrich industries.
