Podcast: Overcoming pig production challenges in Ghana

The Real P3 podcast series is a recent initiative, where pork professionals from all over the world are interviewed about challenges and solutions in their day-to-day work. In this 14^th episode of the podcast series, Dr Casey Bradley speaks to pig farmer Nii Odoi (age 54) in a region in Ghana just 2km from the beach. Odoi started gaining experience in raising pigs when he was 10 years old and in the past 5 years grew his farm from just 25 pigs to 600 pigs and 45 sows. In 5 years’ time he has ambitions to be one of the biggest pig producers in the region and to diversify into other products, like sausages.

Pig breed is the biggest challenge

Odoi discusses the unique challenges that Ghanaian and other African pig farmers face, including the heat with temperatures often reaching 40ºC. The price of feed is another challenge, although there is a good local supply of rice bran. His biggest hurdle to expansion, however, is the pig breeds available in Ghana and the continuous struggle with slow-growing pigs, which typically take 8 months to reach market weight.

In the previous weeks, Pig Progress published earlier episodes of the Real P3 podcast series:

• the prologue of the podcast series;
• Episode 1: Mihaela Angheluta, Denmark;
• Episode 2: Christine Snowden, Ohio, United States;
• Episode 3: Johan Odendall, Zimbabwe;
• Episode 4: James Lamb, North Carolina, United States;
• Episode 5: Dr Wayne Johnson, China;
• Episode 6: Colin Twomey, Ireland;
• Episode 7: Paul Faris, United States;
• Episode 8: A recap of 2020;
• Episode 9: Angie Krieger, United States;
• Episode 10: Henry Silva, United States;
• Episode 11: Shannon Dierking, United States;
• Episode 12: Sanne Baden, Denmark;
• Episode 13: Brian Strobel, United States.