How African Swine Fever – and government inaction – pushed Assam’s pig farmers into penury
The sector was flourishing till the virus wiped out farm after farm across the state last year as the government failed to cull the animals in time. A dead pig being carried to a pit to be buried. | Special arrangement.
Diganta Saikia came back home to Dibrugarh’s Khowang from Delhi in 2015 to help manage the family businesses. But soon the 31-year-old spotted another business opportunity that aligned well with his interests: pigs and pork.
His brother who had also left his life in Bengaluru recently to start anew in Assam harboured similar plans. “One day, I told my brother I want to keep five pigs, and he told me, ‘Even I want to keep five pigs,’” Saikia recalled in a telephone conversation.