Pig farmers raise the alarm over cartels, weak laws

Pig farmers are weighing options on staying in the business after what they say is the invasion of cartels, lax regulation and poor marketing.

In Mount Kenya, farmers who a few years ago dropped dairy business to start search for tidy sums in rearing pigs, say the future is bleak without urgent intervention.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet, they say, and associate their woes to a group of farmers who have formed “pork eating groups” selling at throw-away prices. This has distorted the market.

In this region, most pork retailers are threatening to close down, saying they cannot compete in an environment where prices are heading South while production conditions have become tighter.

That is why, a few farmers told the Business Daily, it was time for the government to come in and create an aura that favours fair competition.

David Ng’ang’a, a pork trader in Saba Saba township of Murang’a County, said the “communal pork eating groups have distorted our business... whereas I used to sell a kilo of pork at Sh320, these groups have fixed the price for at Sh240.”

The groups have set aside weekends and public holidays as pork eating days, thus pushing most traders out of business.

“I cannot compete with such a market force. I’m paying taxes, rent and staff. At Sh240 per kilo, I would be doing charity work,” he says.

Titus Ngugi, a pig breeder in Kiambu County, says “unfriendly forces” are now pulling the strings and will soon kick out farmers from the “lucrative business, unless we form producer groups so that we can be accessing the market as a front.”

It takes six months for a pig to mature, weighing 120 kilogrammes.

“But breeding affordability is not uniform among farmers. With the current inflation that has seen cost of feeds shoot up, most farmers cannot have a pig ready for the market within that period,” he says. Farmers, he adds, have no option but to work as a team.

Some of the popular pig products are pork, sausage, bacon, smokies, gammon, ham and pork scratching. Brawn, which is a tasty and economically priced meat product available in pork or beef, is popular in making sandwiches and salads. It is packaged in 200g or 500g for retail sales in supermarkets or sold in bulk to caterers and butchers.

The hooves and fur are sold to artists in the fashion industry while a weaned piglet goes for an average Sh2, 500. Farmer’s Choice buys a kilo of pork at between Sh195 and Sh120, depending on grading.

Martin Gachuma of Kenge Farm in Kiambu County who was feted by the Agricultural Society of Kenya as a breeder, says farmers have an opportunity in franchises.

“This is whereby pig breeders form groups to access the market as well as source for credit to help them expand,” he says. It is an uphill task for an individual farmer to access the market “since you will require a weekly production of at least 1,000 kilos of pork.”

Mr Gachuma says the conditions are worse taken into account monopolistic tendencies where we only have one company buying pigs from farmers.
Private slaughterhouses are controlled by brokers who are pushing for lowest of prices from breeders.

Mr Gachuma says nearly 100 million metric tonnes of pork are consumed worldwide and the local farmer needs information and training on value addition and accessing a structured market.

In the face of all this, breeders are now demanding that the government develop a pig breeding policy and police its development.

Pork is one of the most widely consumed meat varieties in the world, accounting for about 38 per cent of meat production worldwide. The big five export markets for pork are China, European Union, United States, Russia and Japan in that order.

“We have a high demand from privately owned pork processors who are contracting us to breed pigs. There is a vast guaranteed and a long-term market with handsome profits. Our major handicap is ability to meet this market demand,” says James Kaigai, a breeder in Murang’a County.

Farmer’s Choice operations manager Stanley Njoroge concurs.

“We have ready markets besides our traditional ones in United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria and India. The volume of exports means major favours to local farmers,” he says.

Mr Njoroge says his company supplies about 50 per cent of the market demand, leaving breeders to supply the other half.

“The demand that we have sourced requires an average of 500 pigs daily. It is now up to farmers to take advantage of the opportunity,” he said.

Mr Njoroge says Farmer’s Choice has invested in field officers to equip breeders with education and skills on husbandry.

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