This 2:40-minute film presents a ‘day in the life’ of a research-for-development project working to improve smallholder pig production in Uganda. The film highlights the big opportunities as well as challenges faced by small-scale pig producers in this East African country.

Pig farming is becoming big business in Uganda. Some 1.1 million mostly small-scale farmers in the country keep more than 3 million pigs. Uganda is Africa’s leading pork-consuming nation, with Ugandans consuming an average of 3.4 kg of pork per person per year. Researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) who are conducting two projects in the country that will propose more efficient ways of raising pigs, safer ways of handling and selling pork, and ways to increase access to pig markets by poor farmers.

One ILRI project is investigating Smallholder Pig Value Chains to enhance the whole of these chains – from farms to forks. Another, Safe Food, Fair Food, is working to improve pork safety, especially meat sold in the country’s many ‘informal’ markets, in both rural and urban areas.

The local partners in these projects include veterinary and other officials from Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries; National Agricultural Research Organization; National Livestock Resources Research Institute; as well as staff of Makerere University, local governments and NGOs, such as Volunteer Efforts for Development Concern.

These Uganda pig projects are part of two CGIAR Research Programs on Agriculture for Nutrition for Health (A4NH), and Livestock and Fish and are funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The film was created by Elisabeth Kilian, a communications student on attachment to ILRI in 2013, and edited and produced with the assistance of Kristina Rösel, project coordinator of the Safe Food, Fair Food project and Danilo Pezo, project leader of the Smallholder Pig Value Chains Development in Uganda Project.

Read an ILRI news story on Ugandans and pork: A story that needs telling, 19 Feb 2014.