Background
The history of Lao indigenous pig breeds (Moo Lath) such as where was their origin? How long have they been in Laos? Who did the first introduce into Laos? Those of these questions are still waiting for a precise answer by value researchers or anyone else. Lath, the common name of Lao indigenous pig breeds, it means "a local breed". This is not only the pig but it also means for other common animal breeds i.e. native chicken, cattle, water buffalo, etc. It is clearly known that Moo Lath has a long history or we can say that they came with the same time Lao moved to settle in the land of Laos.
The name of Moo Lath, it might come from "Moo Lard" and I suspected it might come from the English word which "lard" means fat. If so, I think this name (Moo Lath) came from French when the French conquered Laos in 1893, and French might name them as their lard. (This is only my suspicion). In Laos, there are so many things that were named by French such as "watch", which called in Lao is "Mong", etc.
Most of Moo Lath is raised by smallholders, and most of them are kept in the rural areas. Native pig breeds have the specific advantage and disadvantage i.e. they can live and easily adapt to the harsh environment condition, and they can be fed with local and kitchen waste as their feed or scavenging. Alongside positive points, the native pig breeds also have their constraints i.e. low growth rate only 80-100 g per day, small body size, low litter size, more fat ratio in comparison with their commercial breeds, etc.
This is more beneficial to save Moo Lath as conservation alongside the model farm base on a simple method which creates more useful for farmers in rural areas of Laos where most of them enjoy raising native pig breeds as part of their house income. Those reasons lead our team from Dongkhamxang Agriculture Technical College (DATC) to run the program to establish a native pig model farm at DATC with the aim of the demonstration learning activities for our students who are mostly the children of poor farmers in the mountainous areas of Laos. This program will fulfill the basic knowledge of how to do and appropriate management of sustainable native pig farm management.
We fully hope our project will be more beneficial to plant the crucial base knowledge of native farm management which closely and could be applied to real conditions in the most remote areas of Laos.
This web page also designed to provide more related articles which directly concern about Moo Lath Lao from famous researchers both in the country and abroad, to provide more information about Moo Lath for all interested persons.