Africa urged to put in place regulatory standards to safeguard pig rearing

NAIROBI, May 31 (Xinhua) -- African countries should put in place regulatory standards to safeguard the fast increasing rearing of pigs, an official from an international animal welfare organization said on Thursday.

Victor Yamo, Humane and Sustainable Agriculture Campaigns Manager at World Animal Protection, said the consumption of the pig products has increased to unprecedented levels in recent past in the continent hence the need to have regulatory standards in place.

Yamo told a forum in Nairobi that currently, pigs are amongst the most intensively farmed animals in Africa following the increasing number of smallholder farmers.

He said that with increased consumption of processed pork products such as ham and bacon, the countries need to develop regulatory standards to help guide the industry.

"The standards will also help consumers know the country of origin through the labels on the packages," Yamo added.

He revealed that Kenya's pig industry is one of the fastest rising with the entry of foreign-based fast food restaurants that were once regarded as high value markets.

"The high value markets that farmers were encouraged to produce to export to are now in Nairobi hence the need to streamline production to enable farmers benefit," Yamo said.

Nigeria has the largest stock of pigs in Africa with eight million pigs currently.

"There is need to increase pig farming using the new technology since it is currently the leading consumed terrestrial animal in the world," Amimo noted.

He called for farmers' support towards adopting Artificial Insemination (AI) to enable them produce quality animals from enhanced genetics.

"There is need to reintroduce extension workers to offer technical advisory services to the smallholder farmers in the continent since meat consumption is set to increase in the coming years," he said.

He called for the increased budgetary allocation in the livestock sector by governments to help spur production and also help create employment. Enditem