Because of religious belief, many Indians do not eat pork, but what makes everyone surprised is the live hogs raised in India have a large amount, India has a great potential market for the pig industry.
According to a study of the Animal Husbandry and Meat Industry in India, pig farming with a profit of 60% topped all other types of subsidiary occupations like dairying at 10%, and poultry at 30% in the past few years.
With the introduction of new techniques for rearing and breeding pigs and appreciative-encouraging Government Schemes. Farmers and keen people are now attracted to pig farming, because of its low starting cost and decent earning at the same time. Moreover, not only traditional farmers, young-generation farmers from all over the country trying their hands in different areas of animal husbandry and in these areas, the most popular one is pig breeding farms.
Rising per capita income, growing urbanization, and unfolding globalization are boosting the demand for high-value commodities including meat. Due to these changes in recent years, a rapid shift has taken place in dietary habits in favor of a nonvegetarian diet. As a result, demand for pork has swiftly increased and the Indian domestic market price for pork has risen from Rs. 30-40 kg to 90-140 per kg over the last 5 years.
With the gradual replacement of societal and religious taboos, pig rearing by using advanced technical management practices is becoming more and more popular across all social strata finding this enterprise with comparatively more earnings.
The Indian government has announced a scheme, Pig Development Scheme, which was started in 2010, aiming at encouraging commercial pig farming by farmers or laborers; improving production performance of native breeds through cross-breeding by using selected pigs of high-performing breeds; providing incentives in terms of capital subsidy for ensuring the viability of the pig breeding, rearing and related activities.
But before the Pig Development Scheme, pig rearing has traditionally been the main occupational axis of the socially backward down-trodden class of the Indian population since immemorial time. The average production of pigs in India is less compared with the developed countries. The main reason is the lack of knowledge in respect of pig rearing and breeding, and another reason is due to the image of pigs in Indian society. However, pig farming is no longer restricted to lower class people at present for the implementation of the Pig Development Scheme, and most of the higher caste people have seen the economic importance of this animal and have started pig farming in a scientific manner.
