Helping pig-farming families bring their animals to market in the Philippines
A woman feeds her family's pigs.
Photo: The Developers' Foundation
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Forty-five poor farmer households in Aklan, Central Philippines, are learning valuable new skills to help them raise their pigs for sale at market, thanks to Church World Service and local Philippine partner, the Developers' Foundation.
Market access is critical for small family farmers, and with CWS support these families are gaining access to micro-credit, business-development training, and veterinary assistance to help keep the pigs healthy and fatten them for market.
The families live in an area where 42.9% of the rural population lives below the poverty line. Gaining access to short-term loans, with low and affordable interest rates, as well as learning how to better care for their animals, has enabled the farmers to earn some 1,000 Philippine pesos ($22) per hog--helping them provide better for their families. Learning more about how to better bring their animals to market at the beginning and end of the hog-fattening process has proven to be crucial to the participants' success as well. For these impoverished families, the micro-enterprise hog project has afforded them the promise of a better life.