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Table 2 Potential risks and risk mitigation associated with adoption of improved diets for pigs by men, women in male-headed households (WMHH) and women in female-headed households (WFHH) smallholder pig farmers in Central Region, Uganda

From: Men and women farmers’ perceptions of adopting improved diets for pigs in Uganda: decision-making, income allocation, and intra-household strategies that mitigate relative disadvantage

Potential risk

Participant

Participants’ perception

Potential risk

Chopping

Men

One can cut off their fingers while chopping the feeds, if not done with care

WMHH

Not mentioned

WFHH

One can cut [his/her] finger while chopping the vines, tubers or papaya leaves

Collecting fruit and leaves

Men

Not mentioned

WMHH

The child may fall from the tree as they try to get them [avocado, jackfruit, or papaya leaves] down. Even the tree can break, and the child falls down while looking for feed for the pig

Avocados, jackfruit can hit [you] while picking from the trees

Sap fall in the eyes while picking papaya leaves

Banana leaves and stem can easily hit you while picking

WFHH

A person can fall off the tree as you climb to get the jack fruits. [Facilitator: Who falls?] The child

Collecting vines and forages

Men

Sharp instrument like broke bottles, [inaudible] may hurt you while looking and collecting feeds

WMHH

One can be bitten by a snake or caterpillar while collecting vines and tubers

Can be hurt by sharp rocks while picking potato vines

WFHH

A person can develop back ache and chest pain because of carrying too heavy loads

Too much work, you find that you almost do all the work, you find that you are fatigued, and you get old and sickly early in life

You get stressed because you worry too much. You may find that psychologically you are stressed. In the name of God

Human and pig competition for food

Men

There is going to be competition between humans and pigs especially when it comes to avocados, jackfruits and potato tubers

WMHH

Our children are going to hate us because they are going to compete with pigs. We have been feeding pigs on the wastes…gone-bad avocados and jackfruits but after this training, pigs are supposed to be fed on good products. This is going to be hard to divide the fruits between our children and pigs

We may experience hunger because some families survive on jackfruits as a meal. And some of these families keep pigs yet pigs are supposed to eat good products. [I] am seeing this as somehow hard to cope with

WFHH

Not mentioned

Mitigation of potential risks

Chopping

Men

Acquire chopping machines and protective gears [like] gloves, boots and overalls

Work slowly with no rush to avoid injuries

Hire someone else to help with risky task

WMHH

Individually, we can get gloves

Long-term solutions; buy machines

WFHH

It is God who is protecting us. We do not have any [measures we currently use to avoid such dangers]

There are small machines we can use for chopping the ingredients which we can use to make it easy. You may not even use the child but you sit and do it yourself. You can get a stool, instead of bending, to ease life

[Facilitator: You said you can chop your fingers when chopping the feeds. How are you going to overcome that?] We can acquire what to use. However, we do not know how. [You said there is a machine that we can use to do the chopping. How can you acquire it?] It is expensive for us. It will be difficult to get. It will be difficult, but we maybe we can buy it as a group

Using protective gear like the gloves protects one from getting diseases even if one has done farming for a long time. Even the cuts will not go as deep as when one is not protected

[if] the chopping is done on a table; this even reduces the chances of cutting yourself even the more

Collecting fruit and leaves

Men

Not mentioned

WMHH

Use sharp and long strong stick to pick avocado

Climb with caution…. more careful and if kids are to climb trees, let the ones with experience do it

WFHH

We can use a pruning knife to get the jackfruit from the tree. [Facilitator: But are there trees which are not very tall?] … Aaaa, most of our trees are tall. But madam, we can plant improved trees, the crossed types. If what is coming in future and I am to keep livestock and I have land for cultivation, I will plant short tree varieties. There are those they say are grafted: avocado, mangoes, and even jack fruit grafted trees are there…yes they have started grafting it. It is there. These are short and will put on fruits at a short height. We can get the fruits without climbing the trees

Collecting vines and forages

Men

Not mentioned

WMHH

Buy gum boots

… [put gloves on our hands] to avoid crawling insects and caterpillars

WFHH

Carrying things on the head is bad, but if you have a wheelbarrow, it becomes easy. Even for the children as well. It means we can use the wheelbarrow to overcome the problem of lifting heavy feed materials. [Facilitator: What about a bicycle, you can go with it further, everywhere?] But there might be thorns which can puncture the tyres. The bicycle can work, but the wheelbarrow can work anywhere. But families in the village with wheelbarrows are very few

Human and pig competition for food

Men

We hope to plant more trees and food stuff in order to address this challenge. Plant more trees so that we can avoid the worries which may rise between pigs and humans

WMHH

For the children, we have to share equally and not to feed pigs only

Train children to love pigs by telling them the benefits we will get out of keeping the pigs. This can be achieved by naming the pigs after [the children’s] names and by showing [the children] the benefits like paying school fees in time and buying for them some clothes

WFHH

The children at home will not spoil the feed stuffs we use at home now that they have known that they are useful to the animals. Remember it’s the children who climb the trees to get the jack fruits. You will say, ‘my children, you have got 3 bunches of jack fruit, let us reserve this one for the pigs, for tomorrow’. They will have started to realize the value of jack fruit to the pigs

Working collectively

Men

[Facilitator: Are there other things that could be done to decrease the risks?] Work in groups

WMHH

For the chopping machine, we can form groups so that we can afford to buy. Or else can achieve it at individual level

WFHH

Madam, when you want to reduce the work load, you have to put in money. If not then you reduce the stock, which we do not like. We are looking for means of increasing income; I do not have to hire labor. …work as a group

Ha, to get income, you cannot work in a group. I do not buy that one. Ha, we first do like this and feed the animals, then move to the next, when will they reach my home? For some they won’t even turn up after they have done theirs. Aaaa let each one do theirs. For making silage for example, we can say let us move chopping from one to the other, but one may be having 5 pigs and me I have only one pig, will we chop the same amount with that one with 5? Yes for us we are happy with the way we are

Government assistance

Men

Not mentioned

WMHH

Not mentioned

WFHH

We have asked [the] government to assist for a very long time. You request them, they promise to assist but they do nothing. It is not good to rely on them. They promised to construct pig houses for us in order to improve on pig management; it is now over many years they have done nothing. They told us that there are certain organizations willing to assist us improve pig management. They are the ones, even you, facilitator. If you have a good pen, this type of feeding would be easy. But they have done nothing. Let them build expensive pig pens for us