For a long time, Kenya had only one pig breeder, and with most pig farmers sourcing piglets from one supplier, this led to higher chances of in-breeding, while compromising production in terms of weight and ability to grow faster.
This is the situation Christine Miyogo found herself in when she ventured into the piggery business. Instead of going with what was the norm, she saw an opportunity to import boars and sows from South Africa, Zambia and Uganda for breeding and production.
“It was very tough at the initial stages as my husband and I were still in formal employment with little knowledge and information on piggery,” recalls Ms Miyogo, the proprietor of Misega Farm Limited, breeders and producers of hybrid pigs in Embu.
Initially, having started the venture in Rongai, Kajiado County, in 2014, it was a false start for the couple. They sold their first stock of pigs at nine months, weighing 35kg each. For someone still in employment, she did not realise this was way below optimum until one of her customers suggested that for the business to realise its full potential, she has to do it as a full-time engagement.
“We didn’t even know, which breed we had bought. The second mistake we made was the failure to carry out proper research on what successful piggery business entails,” she adds.
In her quest for more information, the entrepreneur says she researched piggery, and visited several farms, including travelling to Uganda, to see what else she could do to make the business could work.
While visiting different farms, she came across different breeds but ended up picking those from Uganda, which gave her good results and marked a starting point for the business.
Due to urbanisation, Ms Miyogo says, they faced waste management challenges. Therefore, they relocated the piggery unit to their farm in Embu.
“I still had the office mentality when I resigned from employment for full-time engagement in this venture thinking I could still run the business from Nairobi,” she says.
She faced a lot of frustration from the employees who were stealing pig feeds.
“We had to sack all the employees and bring in new ones and despite the investments in new breeds and stocking of commercial feeds, we were still not getting the results we wanted in terms of production and weight gain,” says Ms Miyogo.
“We started selling the animals quite early with heavyweight, even though we were still not selling as frequently/regularly as we had hoped,” she said.
They had to get back to the drawing board because, for a sustainable and profitable piggery, one needs monthly income. To achieve that, they needed more animals for production. Ms Miyogo teamed up with other pig farmers and travelled to Zambia and South Africa to ship in another batch of breeds, boosting production.
She says even though they were now seeing better results in terms of production—faster maturity and weight gain—they had still not reached the optimum production level and broken even.
“Piggery is a capital-intensive business, and for one to attain profitability, it takes a journey of five years, and if you do not know how the business goes, you end up making losses due to a lack of information,” she cautions.
Ms Miyogo says since moving to Embu, Misega Farm has grown from nine sows to 36 highbred sows.
“Breeds are about different genetics, and all you do is try a different one to see if they can grow fast and improve litter size, among others. That’s what we are trying to do,” she says.
Ms Miyogo advises that in piggery, what makes the business grow is the number of sows. For them to sell weekly, they have to increase the number of sows from 36 to 94 and also venture into large-scale layer chicken production.
“In every business, you have a complement. When I look at piggery and layers of chicken, they complement each other. The raw materials we use for piggery are the same ones we will use for layer chicken feed production,” she reveals.
Ms Miyogo says the biggest risk to her business right now is the cost of production post-Covid-19 pandemic. The cost of raw materials for feed milling has skyrocketed.
“Every risk has an opportunity underneath, and for us, the high cost of raw materials forced us to come up with a new feed formulation without compromising on quality, which in turn enabled us to lower our cost of production, improve our profit margin over time,” says Ms Miyogo, adding that instead of applying the feed formulation as-is, they customise what they have.
Ms Miyogo says so far so good. However, she says in piggery meeting the buyers’ needs is a priority.
“We don’t play around with feeding right from the start, as this allows you to have heavy piglets, which gives you a good start,” says Ms Miyogo, adding that the piggery business is about time and weight—finish early with a heavy animal.
She says on average, Misega Farm sells 50 animals to Farmers Choice a month, but they aim to make weekly sales to achieve that. The plan is to fully mechanise farm operations to increase efficiency.
“Right now, when we look at the data of piglets that get crashed at birth, the number is quite high, not to mention hygiene issues, and mechanisation and automation will enable us to reduce our veterinary costs and reduce our workforce,” says Ms Miyogo.
