The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | About 5 million pigs in the country will be killed by stress induced by rising temperatures over the next twenty years, a devastating average of 250,000 pigs are killed in a year. And as if the death is not bad enough, the heat stress is also killing the pigs libido and the disinterest in mating means they are no longer reproducing fast enough to replace the dying ones.
Even worse, the frustration from the stress is inducing cannibalistic tendencies and some of the surviving infants get eaten up by their frustrated parents. Because swine do not have sweat glands and as such are unable to regulate their body temperature through sweating whenever temperature rises, the scientists are now worried that the country will lose 30% of its pig population unless something is done to control climate change.
Research carried out by the Consultative Group on Information Agricultural Research(CGIAR) in collaboration with International Livestock Research Institute(ILRI) to determine the effect of heat on pigs shows that the country will lose many as Uganda’s pig death toll is expected to reach 39.9 million pigs by the year 2100 if nothing is done to control climate change.
The scientists explain that when heat caused by the sun adds to the heat from the animal’s body, pigs tend to overheat. The state of them overheating is referred to as ‘heat stress’, which affects the reproductivity of the pig.
When the pigs are exposed to continuous high levels of heat and their bodies fail to cool themselves due to the lack of sweat glands, their reproductivity falls, the immune system gets weakened, the amount of food intake reduces and often death results.
And bad for the farmers, the pork from heat-stressed pigs is of low quality. Scientists says such pork is fatty and has a low shelf life. Because the heat also leads to low libido, infertility occurs and this affects the size of pigs. Another misfortune is that the stress also leads to still births.
Dr Emily Ouma, a senior scientist at the ILRI, says the loss of pigs will affect livelihoods as many people depend on pig farming.
According to the scientists, heat stress conditions are mostly recorded in North-western and Southern parts of Uganda. In these parts of the country, heat stress conditions are experienced at least 37 days in a year.
Dr Deogratius Wonekha, a senior veterinary officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries says if nothing is done, pig production in the country will suffer.
Dr Wonekha says climate change needs to be addressed so that changes can be made in the way big scale pig farmers are rearing the animals. He says the current practice of keeping pigs in an enclosed setting as a way to deal with heat stress is making pigs aggressive.
“Due to high heat levels, farmers today no longer want to let their pigs roam, they resorted to keeping them in controlled environments, but pigs do not like these environments,” he said. “They want to roam about but they cannot, and you find they are bored and frustrated and as a result become aggressive to the point of even eating their piglets,” he said.
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics estimates that 4.2 million pigs are produced annually in the country, and demand for the animals will likely surpass supply in the next five years. Researchers say pig farmers need to increase the production of the animals to 5 million pigs to meet demand better.
Dr Joshua Zake, the director of Environment Alert-a Non-Governmental Organization that advocates for sustainable natural resource management and food security says even if pig production is increased and nothing done to address climate change, the sector is doomed.
“We can’t continue like business is as usual,” he said. “We need to address this to be able to increase levels of production since demand is estimated to increase. If we do nothing, we shall lose 30 percent of production, which will affect everyone in the sector.”
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