Abstract
Ghana is predominantly an agricultural country with a clear majority of its population depending partly or fully on agriculture for their livelihoods. Pork consumption in Ghana is on the increase and the livestock industry is a key sector of alternative agri-business for farmers looking for profitable business ventures and household income. The growth of Ghana’s domestic piggery industry has been impeded by several constraints such as inadequate information, lack of improved breeding stock, land limitations, rising feed cost and water availability. In this research, systems models provide an understanding of the interconnectedness and relationships present within the piggery industry of Ghana. The Industry’s problems were pooled together and key factors identified, whose behavior over time causes problems by developing various individual two-loop system archetypes coupled with a list of sustainable management strategies. Also, the individual variables affecting the industry were consolidated to obtain a causal loop structure and behavior-over-time graph of the piggery industry. The system archetype developed here is generic enough to explain any productivity decline and business rivalry behavior of any agribusiness industry. The proposed archetype can also help farm managers and producers to make various decisions. The system archetypes contribute effectively to understanding the root cause of challenges rather than providing quick fixes ‘now’ which gives rise to a much bigger problem to fix ‘later’. Application of CLDs models and system archetypes can help farmers and policy makers understand the behaviour of the entire complex piggery systems that will aid in more clarity and consistency in decisions and policy objectives. This will close the gap of inadequate information both to farmers and policy makers and governance. Through the archetypes and the CLDs, it has been identified that using a systemic approach in addressing the problems could lead to the provision of adequate data and management strategies for effective decision making for improving the piggery/livestock industry.
Highlights
Sixty percent of rural households in developing countries are partially or fully dependent on livestock for their livelihoods [1]
The livestock farming sector, including piggery remains critically important for millions of people in developing countries including Ghana and developments within this sector are most important in terms of attaining the sustainable development goals (SDGs), goals of no poverty [3,4]
The multiple roles of pig rearing and other indigenous livestock breeds are significantly acknowledged in different farming systems of Ghana including the intensive, semi-intensive and free range systems
Summary
Sixty percent of rural households in developing countries are partially or fully dependent on livestock for their livelihoods [1]. Livestock rearing provides the household with a wide range of benefits, such as cash income, food, manure, draft power and hauling services, savings and insurance, and social status [2]. Of all the agriculture activities the livestock subsector recorded the highest growth of 9.3 percent in 2015 [5]. The piggery sector which contributes to household income, is one of the fast growing sectors of the livestock industry because of increase in pork consumption [6,7]. The multiple roles of pig rearing and other indigenous livestock breeds are significantly acknowledged in different farming systems of Ghana including the intensive, semi-intensive and free range systems. The industry is affected by diseases caused by the PRRS virus, PCVD virus, Classical Swine Fever (CSF) Viral diarrhoea in piglets, Aujeszky’s
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