The pens were similar to those used in small-scale pig keeping in South-East Asia.
Overall, our results suggest that the level of disease identified by small-scale pig keepers is low but the majority of the small-scale pig keepers are mixed farms, with associated increased risk for disease transmission between species.
The authors use small-scale pig keepers in Scotland as an example of how important small-scale livestock keepers might be for national biosecurity.
The ecotourism sector in Tambopata, as a group, generates more profit per hectare than any other activity, with the trivial exception of small-scale pig farming, which cannot be scaled up, and the nontrivial exception of selective logging (Supporting Information Table S1).
Traditional small-scale pig rearing uses low value/trash fish but large-scale pig farming uses agro-industrial formulated feed containing fish meal.
From November to December 2013, an outbreak of an unknown disease occurred at two small-scale pig farms (103 pigs in farm A and 101 pigs in farm B), operating for a short time in Hebei Province, China.
Alternative and complementary therapies have instead been explored by resource-poor small-scale pig farmers in West Africa, in an attempt to save their stock in an outbreak situation.
This investigation fills gaps in knowledge which will allow industry stakeholders and policy makers to adapt their current disease programmes and contingency plans to the reality of small-scale pig-keeping enterprises' health and biosecurity status.
The majorities of the pig populations studied were from the Bishoftu area, where many large and small scale commercial pig farms are concentrated.
Potential ASF risk factors were present on both small and medium-scale pig farms, although small scale farms exhibited a higher proportion with multiple potential risk factors (like borrowing boars for sows mating, buying replacement from neighboring farms without ascertaining health status, etc) and did not implement any biosecurity measures.
