ICAR- Indian Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology (IIAB), Ranchi organized a hands-on training on “Scientific Pig Farming” on Sunday, for skill development of the stakeholder farmers of Soparam and Somersoth villages under Balumath block of Latehar district.
The programme was organised under Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP) scheme of Govt. of India. As many as 17 farmers who have been doing traditional pig husbandry with less knowledge of scientific and profitable farming were oriented on different aspects, namely feeding, management, health care, etc.
With focus on entrepreneurship development. Fifty-two numbers of weaned improved variety of piglets, suitable for the region, were provided to the farmer stakeholders. The distributed animals were vaccinated against prevalent diseases. Eight quintals of pig grower feed were also provided to the farmers for supplementation purpose to ensure optimum growth and switchover to field condition.
The pig variety, provided to the farmers, can gain approximately 80 kg bodyweight at slaughter age of 8-10 months, more than double the bodyweight of local variants.
It can produce 8-12 piglets in each farrowing with two farrowing each year, at par with the exotic variety. This variety has widely been validated in farmers’ field. It is expected to enhance farmers’ income and contribute to their nutritional and livelihood security.
The programme was conducted under the patronage of Dr. Tilak Raj Sharma, the Director of ICAR-IIAB, Ranchi. It was jointly coordinated by Dr. Soumen Naskar (Sr. Scientist), Dr. Binay Kr. Singh (Sr. Scientist) and Dr. Avinash Pandey (Scientist and Nodal Officer of SCSP). Mr. Devendra Kr. Singh and Vikash Kr. Mishra actively assisted the program.
