Many families at the Jongbang Cooperative Farm in Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province, get huge benefit from sideline animal husbandry.

As the farm is located near the animal husbandry institute of the Academy of Agricultural Science, households raise many pigs including boar and sow to be called a “village of breeding stock pigs”.

The family of Hwang Il Bong keep over a dozen stock breeding pigs and a hundred odd piglets in a pigsty with dozens of compartments.

“It was some ten years ago when our family started to breed pigs. At first I didn’t like to raise pigs much since I had no experience of rearing the animal. Moreover, it was also toilsome as I had to do farm work in the daytime,” said Hwang’s wife Kim Hyang Mi.

Her husband told her that pig raising makes it possible to produce a great deal of manure so that they can do farming properly.

So, she began to breed a sow. Pig raising went smoothly beyond her expectations. With strong conviction and desire, the couple brought two more sows.

As the number of pigs increased many problems arose.

One morning, dozens of piglets died of a disease at the same time to dispirit her, Kim Hyang Mi said.

The couple read many books related to livestock farming and visited the animal husbandry institute to acquire necessary knowledge of the cause of outbreak of swine disease and the feed.

In the course of this, they realized that superior breeds, sufficient feed, scientific approach to rearing and anti-epizootic measures are the four key factors in developing livestock farming.

They selected multiparous and fast-growing breeds whose unit feed is low. Now they produce piglets for fattening by mating Phyongnam with Jasan breeds.

For sufficient feed, they sought a unique method that suits actual conditions.

“As we have widely been known for good pig breeding, many people visit us to learn from our experience. Their primary concern is how we feed lots of pigs,” said Hwang Il Bong.

According to him, their family use two kilograms of toffee dregs which are equivalent to the cost of one kilogram of maize. The couple do not feed pigs natural toffee dregs, but ferment them before mixing evenly together with bean cake and rice bran. With this method pigs can weigh 70 to 80 kilograms after three months.

The same is the case with the breeding stock pigs. Pigs grow fast when they live on barley as it tastes sweetish and promotes digestion and absorption.

Last year alone, Hwang’s family produced three tons of meat and boosted per-hectare grain yield by applying dozens of tons of well-rotted manure per hectare of paddy and dry fields.