Adoption and impact of gaps in pig value chains: Implications for institutional policy and practice change

This paper investigates the adoption of VietGAHP, a set of guidelines for best practices
in pig production, and evaluates impacts using quantitative and qualitative indicators. It tackles
the following specific research questions: 1) What is the extent of adoption of VietGAHP
among smallholder pig producers? 2) Is there a difference in performance between VietGAHP
adopters and non-adopters? Outcomes from adoption and compliance with VietGAHP are
assessed using reduction in mortality as a metric for efficacy. Cost-benefit comparisons are
also made to illustrate economic outcomes as a measure of effectiveness. We employ statistical
t-tests for mean comparison of outcomes between VietGAHP adopters and non-adopters and
across exposed and control sites. Our study shows productivity gains from practice and
behavioral changes elicited from adoption and compliance with VietGAHP outweigh the costs
of doing so, at least at the household level. The observed economic and market incentives could
boost the adoption of VietGAHP if these incentives are sustained with appropriate institutions
in place. Scalability could be facilitated by exposure via demonstration effects. Peer-to-peer
learning is an effective strategy in enhancing capacity for uptake. With exposure being strongly
linked to uptake, regardless of gender of respondents, training opportunities for non-exposed
groups are worthwhile to pursue.