Typology of pig farms in French Guiana and West Indies. Description of farming systems in order to build a technical and economic monitoring network

Poster. In French Guiana and West Indies, the objectives of the pig farmers are very diverse. These lead to distinct farming systems, breeding practices and technical and economic results. Three types of pig farms were identified in each territory: specialized pig farms with 20 to 40 sows, breeding and fattening farms with 2 to 6 sows associated with plant productions and, traditional small fattening farms with a maximum of 5 pigs produced per year. A systemic approach was implemented in order to describe the different systems in the fields of genetics, building, feeding and marketing. Technical performances varied depending on the means implemented : specialized farms get the best performances but in the traditional system, additional income was brought through thrifty practices and a good added value. The distribution of the pig population is also different between the territories, with a lot a small units, especially in Guadeloupe. The setting up of a monitoring network requires to choose on which systems it will be implemented.