Government policy implementation and rural livelihoods: experience with classical swine fever control in the Eastern Cape

Abstract

The current study was undertaken in view of the unprecedented situation in the Eastern Cape Province in which mass culling of pigs was carried out as a result of an outbreak of a deadly virus disease affecting only pigs. Because of the apparent contagious nature of the disease to other pigs and its possible negative impact on international trade, the government embarked on a policy of getting rid of the disease by destroying all affected and contact unaffected pigs. This resulted in an almost total elimination of pigs from all the communal areas of the Eastern Cape Province. The people living in the rural communal areas that bore the brunt of this disease were predominantly peasant farmers, surviving primarily on subsistence food production. The effect of destroying pigs on the livelihoods of these people, while suspected to be negative was otherwise unknown. This study was thus aimed at investigating the consequences of the application of the government policy of eliminating pigs on the livelihoods of the people in areas of the Eastern Cape affected by the swine fever epidemic. The study will also examine the legislative justification for government actions and whether an effective community participatory approach was applied in the policy implementation process.