Farm level impact of feeding improved diets to pigs in the Jomoro District of Ghana

Abstract

The economic impact at farm-level for feeding improved diets to grower-finisher pigs in the Jomoro District of Ghana was assessed using partial budgeting techniques. Three diets were considered: the farmers’ diet, which contained mainly coconut chaff and cake; a cereal based commercial diet and improved agro-industrial by-products (AIBP) based diet. The category of farmers considered reared mainly large-white pig breed. The study uses growth, feed consumption and price data, obtained from an on-farm feed evaluation studies, which results, in terms of nutrition, growth performance, and economy of gain, have been reported elsewhere. The paper estimates alternative measures of the economics of using improved feed by accounting for the reduction in the time to slaughter (70 kg) in the computation of benefits. The net additional benefit resulting from the use of AIBP diet instead of farmer’s diet was ¢1,879,227. The simple benefit-cost ratio was 1.71. The additional benefit due to the use of AIBP diet is about two times more than the extra cost incurred.