Intensified Smallholder Pig Farming in Rural Yunnan: Implications for Livelihood, Culture, Gender, Health and Environment

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to draw the attention of policy makers and research communities to the critical but often ignored relationships between intensified smallholder pig farming, livelihood, poverty alleviation, culture, gender, health and environment in mountainous areas of Yunnan Province, China. It documents changes in how pigs are farmed in one county of Yunnan over the last four decades and analyzes the impact of pig rearing on local livelihood, culture and gender as well as its implications for health and environment. It concludes that modern pig rearing techniques that are intended to be used in large-scale industry pig farming operations have been partially adopted by poor farmers in smallholder pig farming settings, and this has generated a wide spectrum of different pig production systems and also changed disease risks associated with pig farming. It is hard to predict and manage the risks given the rapid, diverse, complex and dynamic changes in the intensified smallholder pig farming systems. The environmental pollution associated with these pig production systems is also different to that caused by major pig production companies, and also calls for new management approaches.