The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
COMMENT | CHRISTOPHER MULINDWA | The latest National Livestock Census report released last month indicates the pig population in Uganda has increased from 3.2million (UBOS 2008) to 7.1million (UBOS 2021). The number of pigs increased more than 100%!
The number of households keeping pigs also increased from about 1.1 (UBOS 2008) to 2.2 Million households. The increasing interest in pig farming means those involved are achieving their objectives. (Uganda’s chicken population at 57.8 million, goats 17 million and pigs 7 million)
The average number of pigs kept per household however did not change. This explains, that the Uganda Pig sector is largely owned by smallholder farmers keeping an average of about 3 pigs.
We thank Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the agriculture ministry (MAAIF) for a job well done with the census. However, the report messed up some technicalities hence reducing it’s importance to both established commercial pig producers and those intending to join the business.
The new and very useful component of the report was the “breed disintegration” but the lack of techinical guidance rendered it useless.
“By breed, the highest population of pigs was of Large White breed with 1.8 million contributing 25.5 percent to the total pig population. This was followed by the Duroc breed whose population was 1.29 million contributing18.3 percent and Landrace whose population was 1.25 million contributing 17.6 to the total pig population. The least pig bread that was kept by farmers was Yorkshire with a population of 952 thousand contributing 13.4 percent to the total pig population.” (UBOS Livestock census report 2021).
- 1. Technically the breed Large White is not different from the breed Yorkshire, both names means the same thing. The name Large White is a modern name to the breed Yorkshire. The Yorkshire breed was initially named according to its place of origin.
- 2. We understand, some of the most restricted and expensive pigs to import are Large White and Landrace. They are expensive because both are maternal grandparent lines used in production of parent lines. Apart from Prime Pork (U) Ltd which has imported majority of these grandparent Maternal lines into the country, Tesco Ltd, NAGRIC, JJAVE Farms Ltd;- there is no other importer owning these breed resources. Therefore, there is no possibility of Uganda owning more than Two Million Large White and Yorkshire breeds.
- 3. The report also indicates 14.2% of the total pig population in Uganda is of Cambrough breed. Therefore Uganda owns more than one million Cambrough pigs. Cambrough is a parent line resulting from the PIC Large White and Landrace. PIC restricts the sale of its grandparent Maternal lines (Large White and Landrace) and therefore no body owns them in Uganda. The Cambrough lines available in Uganda were either imported from Zambia the time Wangwa farms was a multiplier of PIC breed lines or the PIC franchise in South Africa. No importer has ever brought in more than 1000 pigs over the years. Therefore, there is no possibility of Uganda owning more than one million Cambrough breed-lines.
- 4. According to the report, 62.3% of the total population is female pigs;- “The proportions of male and female pigs to the total pig population were 37.7 percent and 62.3 percent respectively.”(UBOS 2021). This means, about 4.4 Million pigs out of the 7.1 Million pigs in Uganda are females. Even under poor fertility conditions, a female pig is able to produce at-least 5 piglets. Therefore, the total pig population in the country would be estimated at more than 20 million pigs except where majority of these females are not used for reproduction which is not the case with majority smallholder producers.
I don’t share this to discredit the researchers or authors of the report but to call them to order. The information they are generating is very important to development of the industry when accurate and technically correct.
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Mulindwa is a Pig Business Consultant.
