Owing to increased human-wildlife conflict as a consequence of climate change and habitat destruction, elephant and other wildlife depredation in Sarpang district has rendered crop agriculture unattractive. At the same time some communities in Sarpang have seen an opportunity with shortage of clean and healthy pork meat in the country. The communities came together to form Sarpang Piggery Yargay Cooperative that pledges to share the responsibility of the Government in meeting market demand of pork in the country. The cooperative aspires to produce clean pork, maintain fair market price, strive to attain self-sufficiency and generate employment to youth and local population. The project will ultimately contribute towards CC adaptation, environment protection, and national food and nutrition security. In order to ensure piggery farming is resilient native pig conservation, promotion and production are also being encouraged to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The emerging global zoonotic diseases like African Swine Fever (ASF) in pigs have posed great risk to the piggery industry and imposed restriction import of pork and pork products from other countries. This highlights the need to enhance local production of clean pork. The Small Grant Project (SGP) support in strengthening internal pork production would immensely contribute in increasing resilience and sustaining the livelihood of pig farmers.


Some 76 pig rearing farmers (56 male and 20 female) formed Sarpang Piggery Yargay Cooperative to address the piglet and pork shortage and reduce burden to the Government in meeting market demand of pork in the country. However, piggery farmers are not able to derive fair price for pork produced. Even though the pork is sold at a premium price in Thimphu, the major share of profit is taken by the middleman or the vendors. Thus, the Cooperatives desire to produce and market pork on their own without involvement of middlemen or the vendors. This is also expected to benefit the pig farmers with a better profit margin and at the same time maintain fair market price for pork benefiting the consumers.

? The Cooperative members will upscale their farm capacity to produce 500 Metric Tons of pork every year.
? The Cooperative members will open One Stop Shop to sell fresh local pork initially in Thimphu and eventually extend other districts.
? The majority of the registered members are either youths or employees from the tourism industry impacted by the recent COVID19 pandemic and have of late ventured into piggery production, thus needing the support.


Currently the meat vendors and middlemen lift pork from the members at a very minimal price (Nu. 280 to 300 per kg) while the same pork is sold at a premium price (Nu. 550) in larger towns. The piggery farmers are not able to derive the best of benefits that they should have derived from venturing into piggery farming and at times have also compromised the sustainability of piggery farming. As piggery farming is their only source of livelihood, the poor returns from piggery farming have already distressed most farmers and most farmers have decided to abandon piggery farming. This will eventually hinder sustainability of piggery farming and impact food and nutrition security of the country.
The One Stop Shop will ensure that the members of the piggery cooperatives derive better returns from the sale of their own produce as the One Stop Shop will be operated and managed by the cooperative members only.

The trickle-down approach proposed will definitely help sustain piggery farming and will reduce the cost of production. This will also help reduce the price of pork and help consumers improve their food basket and help reduce inflation in the process.

More farmers will be encouraged to take up pig farming and foster native pig farming at the same time. With the global outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) there will be reduced import of pork, thereby pig farmers have better opportunity to sustain their livelihood. As the imported pork are also not to the required food safety standards, local pork and the pork from native pigs can fetch better price and will be safer from the food safety perspective.

The reduction in cost of production per unit of pork will proportionately reduce the carbon footprint to produce the same quantity of pork, and help environmentally.

The piggery farming practice in Sarbang mostly engages women and youth. On an average 70-75% of the piggery-related tasks are done by women which are labor-intensive. If the business is not sustainable it can have negative impact on the youths and women engaged in piggery sector thus discouraging piggery and youths may prefer migrating. From the social inclusion perspective, the initiative provides a holistic platform for farmers and especially women and youth to earn a decent income. Thus reducing women?s drudgery, who would actually be farming in the agriculture sector.

As the concept of farmers groups are still in infancy in Bhutan, such formation of groups and their endeavor to produce and market their own products would enhance their capacity. Production, aggregation and marketing in groups and through a One Stop Shop would also enhance their solidarity and support for each other and help develop their capacity as a cooperative.