A survey of butcher perspectives and prevalence of ingested plastic and hardware among goats in rural Malawi markets

Abstract Smallholder goat production plays a major role in rural livelihoods and food security in Malawi. While goat production is closely linked to small scale local markets for slaughter and butchering the perspectives of butchers and their potential as a source of information on animal health is largely untapped. Understanding butchers’ perceptions of factors impacting goat smallholdings is important to identify hardships for both butchers and smallholders. Butchers can provide insights into goat health issues that go unseen before slaughter, including the presence of indigestible foreign bodies (IFBs), which can impact negatively on goat health but are difficult to diagnose before death. The current study includes a survey of 50 butchers in central Malawi to investigate visible animal health issues before and after slaughter, attitudes to procurement, income, and impacts of covid-19 on business. Results revealed butchers find IFBs to be a problem, with 100% of butchers witnessing plastic and 66% witnessing other hardware in recently slaughtered goats. Dog bites were also frequent but the relationship between observed injuries from IFBs and dog bites to goat health was not clearly delineated by butchers’ responses. Income from goats varies and is largely dependent on sales following harvest of agricultural products, with potential for income to drop below the poverty line in times of hardship.