BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE
SOLOMON Islands has had its first live pig export to Kiribati in November last year.
Donald Wang, Taiwan Technical Mission’s outgoing (TTM) livestock specialist, told Island Sun this in a recent interview.
Wang spoke of how they developed a Solomon Islands pig through cross breeding.
Wang said the past couple of years, they have been importing purebred pig from Australia.
He said this led them to the idea of developing a new breed. This will save money and also give local pig farmers less burden, especially since it would be a local breed pig.
Wang said they then selected the best local pig they could find and had it cross breed with their imported Duroc breed pig from Australia.
The result was a new local breed pig they named “SOLROC” which was bigger than the local pig with a capability or as he says “performance” that is not less than that of the imported pig.
Unlike local pigs which local farmers say have too much fat, Solroc is a big enough pig with less layer of fat.
Wang said another good thing about Solroc is that since it only has the local gene, farmers will have less trouble with feed because it can eat anything.
Speaking of an experience with the new pig breed, he told of how everybody wanted to have a taste.
Wang said each time they held one of their activities usually with a barbeque of the Solroc pig, the pork would be finished, before the activity ends.
Interestingly, he mentioned that Solomon Islands exported its first live pig to Kiribati late last year to help Kiribati improve its breeding.
