Factors influencing the sustainability of backyard pig farming in Borongan City, Eastern Samar

This descriptive explanatory design underscored the perceived sustainability influence of thirteen determinant factors on the sustainability of small-scale backyard pig farming in Borongan City involving 30 pig growers and producers. Results of the regression analysis indicated that the sustainability factor that contribute significantly to the small-scale backyard pig farmers’ decision to continuously engage in backyard pig farming are family income, organizational affiliation, access to credit sources other than bank, being contract or independent farmer, and extension exposure. On the other hand, age of respondent, educational attainment of respondent, number of dependents in the family, available family labor, gender, access to bank credit, market of the product, and tolerance/complaint from neighbors influences farmers decision to discontinue their pig farming activities. The most significant determinant factors for farmers to continuously engaged in small-scale pig farming business venture in Borongan City is the availability of financial resources (such as family income, credit that is easy to access, and contract growing scheme) for supporting backyard pig production, and enhanced social capital (organizational affiliation and extension exposure). Two-tailed test and chi square results showed that the differences were all positive which means that the measures for the group with sustainable backyard farming were significantly higher than those for group whose backyard pig production systems were not sustainable. The provision of credit facilities and microfinancing program to support the sustainability of small-scale pig farming business in the city of Borongan; The clustering of municipal hog raisers and traders into cooperative, increasing production volume, adopting a community-based approach in herd-health improvement, encouraging joint production of commercial and backyard swine farms, and increasing efforts to promote social awareness regarding environmental impact of swine production and enhancing the pig farming extension activities are also recommended.