Emerging Small‐Scale Pig Farmers still face difficulties of penetrating the already established markets and have limited resources for production. Thus emerging farmers find it challenging to use their land as means of security for finance, resulting in hindered productivity and growth. They also face difficulties in accessing the commercial formal markets because these markets don’t serve their interests and therefore they use their different methods to sell their products (Chikazunga et al. 2007). Factors such as poor infrastructure, lack of transport, lack of market information, insufficient expertise on product grading, poor farmer organization, inability to solicit contractual agreements, and poor organizational support, have led to inefficient use of markets by emerging farmers with resultant commercialization bottlenecks according to Chikazunga et al. (2007). In addition, pigs provide a less expensive source of animal protein compared with cattle, sheep and goats for urban consumers. While pig farming as part of animal agriculture is central to the development of rural farmers; the real contribution of ESSPF to the sectoral economy is not well assessed and somewhat doubtful. These economic contributions by this group of farmers are faced with management, health, housing, feeding and marketing constraints (Ironkwe & Amefule 2008). The major issues with regard to the ESSPF in accessing or penetrating the formal markets include: (Antwi & Seahlodi 2011). Lack of knowledge and use of market information Lack of access to high‐value reliable markets and high transactional costs Long distance from the markets which tends to influence transactional costs, high feed costs, price and competition Lack of appropriate and affordable means of transport Lack of storage facilities Adverse effects of culture and socio‐economic factors Low educational levels of small‐scale and emerging farmers Imposed agricultural marketing policies Poor agricultural extension services Lack of financial support. The majority of the farmers were older than 45 years of age, an indication that the younger generation prefer not to get involved in agriculture but will rather migrate to urban areas in search of salaried jobs. This observation may also be an indication of late entry into pig production and this is a challenge in terms of skill transfer from elderly to the youth. A similar trend has been observed in other studies (Oladele et al. 2013; Schembri et al. 2013). Currently, it is widely perceived that only the poor get involved in rural farming and it is not a financially rewarding activity. Policies that will encourage the younger individuals to be retained in the rural areas will need to be implemented at all levels to reduce gross emigration to the city while boosting agricultural productivity in the rural areas.
