Chiyanjano Cooperative Sustainable Pig Farm
A "circularly- integrated" pig farm to support an agriculture cooperative. This group of farmers wanted to cut out the middle man by starting a pig farm in order to transform local crop waste into high value meat products.
Traditionally, pigs are left to roam freely—living in filth, suffering high mortality rates, and sharing close quarters with people. They root around and defecate near water sources and food crops, acting as reservoirs and vectors for a wide range of infectious diseases due to their biological similarities to humans. I contracted echinococcosis from one of these pigs.
Built from locally made bricks, the piggery can house up to 30 pigs and uses a deep-litter system with a meter of dry, carbon-rich material. As pigs root, they churn the bedding, boosting aeration and microbial activity. This generates heat that breaks down pathogens and keeps pigs warm on cold nights. The system improves health and comfort, eliminates odor, and minimizes risk of environmental contamination. After a year, the composted bedding is replaced and used as nutrient-rich manure in nearby fields.
The piggery incorporates a small solar-powered water tower in the corner, supplying the pigs with ample drinking water through nipple drinkers and providing irrigation to the nearby gardens.
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The pigs are "Large White" breed, and are fed a mixture of locally produced crop byproducts, mostly maize bran and sunflower cake, waste materials from grain/seed processing.
Biosecurity measures, including a handwashing and foot sanitizing station, and biannual ivermectin injections help to ensure the pigs don't contract any diseases from other livestock, or spread it to people.
Extensive trainings were conducted to teach the group how to successfully raise, breed, and sell meat pigs. When my expertise ran out, we called upon William Creighton (pictured in the center of the group photo below), an experienced Irish pig farmer from Good Nature Agro, to assist us.
By collaborating with nearby farms to maintain genetic diversity, Chiyanjano is using a linebreeding system to ensure the health and quality of the pigs they produce.
After a few incidents with theft during construction, we decided to add security lights, a *definitely not fake* camera, a jagged broken-glass perimeter to the structure, and to conceal the location of the well. There has yet to be a subsequent issue.
The farm has removable walls to separate the boar from the sows, and to erect a farrowing pen for isolating a sow and her piglets from the rest of the animals after having given birth.
The farrowing pen has a removable hide box for the piglets. It's important for the pigs to have an enclosed place to escape from their mother, as she can fail to keep them warm at night, or accidentally crush them.
