6.2 Farming practice
Pig farming in India is primarily an unorganized small-scale and backyard enterprise characterized by subsistence, low input-low output and technologically lagged activity dominated by small land holders (Chauhan et al., 2016; Talukdar et al., 2019). In majority of pig rearing areas in India, farmers follow a production system mostly under scavenging conditions, which depends on locally available unconventional feed like plants and limited amount of kitchen waste (Kumaresan  et al., 2009; Shyam et al., 2017). Scavenging pigs can be found on both urban and rural areas of India where pigs are permitted to scavenge for feed during the day time around the household, streets and nearby forests, and then allowed to take rest in small enclosures at night. The present outbreaks of ASF reported from NE region of India were detected mostly from remote villages where scavenging system of rearing of pig is predominant and animals are allowed to move freely around the home in search of feed (free-grazing). Besides, swill feeding (garbage/food scraps) is a common practice throughout India, often concentrated around metropolitan centres as it is economical for pig rearing and production (Muthuramalingam et al., 2011; Ramesh et al., 2012). However, in most village settings, swills or feed wastes are not heat treated before feeding pigs and thus remains as a source of infection to healthy pig population. A study conducted by a group of researchers in the pig production system in mountainous regions of NE India have reported that pigs died of diseases are disposed either by burial or dumbed in nearby jungles (Kumaresan  et al., 2009). The farmers in rural settings lack awareness on infectious diseases and their mode of transmissions. In general, veterinarians are not informed by livestock owners and most of the infectious disease of animals goes unreported.
The small-scale confined pig production is usually done by marginal farmers and group of household women for both subsistence and commercial reasons. Here, pigs are confined to pens made of local materials to more modern housing systems and fed with leaves, crop residues, agricultural by-products or prepared feed. The farmers owning such small-scale pig farms often search for traders within their marketing chain. The traders usually travel between villages and collect pigs to bring them to live animal markets or slaughter areas where mixing of animals at wet markets and during transport is more frequent (Shyam et al., 2016). Therefore, diseases confined to a group of pigs are more likely to spread to different regions due to purchase of infected piglets/pigs from unknown sources. Besides, it is not a common practice to quarantine the newly introduced animals in the farms. Moreover, in most rural and remote areas, there are no organized slaughterhouses or abattoirs and pigs are usually slaughtered in home or in open meat markets. Thus, sewage from these poorly equipped facilities is directly accessible to other animals as a source of food. Therefore, it is obvious that highly infectious diseases like ASF can easily spread at local level associated with free-range pig production, local pig movements and lack of basic biosecurity measures among the pig owners. Commercial pig-farms involved in high scale pig production in India are limited and can be found in urban and per-urban areas where agricultural and market opportunities are available (Mohakud et al., 2020). The risks of transmission of ASFV associated with the pig farming practice in Indian settings are described in Figure 1.