6.2 Farming practice
Pig farming in India is primarily an unorganized small-scale and
backyard enterprise characterized by subsistence, low input-low output
and technologically lagged activity dominated by small land holders
(Chauhan et al., 2016; Talukdar et al., 2019). In majority of pig
rearing areas in India, farmers follow a production system mostly under
scavenging conditions, which depends on locally available unconventional
feed like plants and limited amount of kitchen waste
(Kumaresan et al., 2009; Shyam et al., 2017). Scavenging pigs can
be found on both urban and rural areas of India where pigs are permitted
to scavenge for feed during the day time around the household, streets
and nearby forests, and then allowed to take rest in small enclosures at
night. The present outbreaks of ASF reported from NE region of India
were detected mostly from remote villages where scavenging system of
rearing of pig is predominant and animals are allowed to move freely
around the home in search of feed (free-grazing). Besides, swill feeding
(garbage/food scraps) is a common practice throughout India, often
concentrated around metropolitan centres as it is economical for pig
rearing and production (Muthuramalingam et al., 2011; Ramesh et al.,
2012). However, in most village settings, swills or feed wastes are not
heat treated before feeding pigs and thus remains as a source of
infection to healthy pig population. A study conducted by a group of
researchers in the pig production system in mountainous regions of NE
India have reported that pigs died of diseases are disposed either by
burial or dumbed in nearby jungles (Kumaresan et al., 2009). The
farmers in rural settings lack awareness on infectious diseases and
their mode of transmissions. In general, veterinarians are not informed
by livestock owners and most of the infectious disease of animals goes
unreported.
The small-scale confined pig production is usually done by marginal
farmers and group of household women for both subsistence and commercial
reasons. Here, pigs are confined to pens made of local materials to more
modern housing systems and fed with leaves, crop residues, agricultural
by-products or prepared feed. The farmers owning such small-scale pig
farms often search for traders within their marketing chain. The traders
usually travel between villages and collect pigs to bring them to live
animal markets or slaughter areas where mixing of animals at wet markets
and during transport is more frequent (Shyam et al., 2016). Therefore,
diseases confined to a group of pigs are more likely to spread to
different regions due to purchase of infected piglets/pigs from unknown
sources. Besides, it is not a common practice to quarantine the newly
introduced animals in the farms. Moreover, in most rural and remote
areas, there are no organized slaughterhouses or abattoirs and pigs are
usually slaughtered in home or in open meat markets. Thus, sewage from
these poorly equipped facilities is directly accessible to other animals
as a source of food. Therefore, it is obvious that highly infectious
diseases like ASF can easily spread at local level associated with
free-range pig production, local pig movements and lack of basic
biosecurity measures among the pig owners. Commercial pig-farms involved
in high scale pig production in India are limited and can be found in
urban and per-urban areas where agricultural and market opportunities
are available (Mohakud et al., 2020). The risks of transmission of ASFV
associated with the pig farming practice in Indian settings are
described in Figure 1.