Pig rearing is tops for profit in India

Monday, December 6, 2010

Want to be a profitable pig farmer? Go west young man, way west. All the way to the district of Dakshina Kannada in India, where the first pig co-operative in the state of Karnataka was inaugurated in late October.  According to The Times of India, Mangalore legislative assembly member N. Yogist Bhat says pig rearing, with a profit of 60 per cent, topped all other types of farming such as poultry, with a mere 30 per cent return, sheep, 22 per cent and dairy with a 10 per cent profit.

The state government is encouraging farming by disbursing loans at one per cent interest. A "pig unit" costs the equivalent of C$456 to establish and the government will subsidize 100 units in a district to the tune of 50 per cent. The government gave the Karnataka co-op nearly C$5,000 to help start a processing unit.

Sensing the time was right, the co-op's directors demanded to be able to raise pigs inside the city proper, a 100 per cent subsidy for setting up a bacon factory and an office in the state's animal husbandry department.

The nearby city has 6.1 million people and the local governments are reluctant to grant permission for pig farms inside their areas. The co-op has 205 members. Bhat says if farmers adopt scientific methods for reducing pig odours and waste from their farms, he will lobby for them. That might eat into the 60 per cent margin. BP