2.4 Farmers Interviews
A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from all smallholder pig farmers within the Mathenjwa community (n=254) from April 2017 to December 2017. The purpose of the interview was to gather information on potential wild-domestic pigs interactions observed by the local rural communities and to gather information on prevalent pig diseases in the area. Pig farmers were identified at dip tanks and interviews were conducted on their farms. The 45 minutes interview comprised of 22 questions administered in the Zulu language by the first author. To ensure that no pig farm was missed, the exhaustive snowball method was used (Etikan, Alkassim, & Abubakar, 2016). Farmers were asked if they observed wild suids near their farm (Table 6, supplementary material). Observations were clustered into 2 groups of distances from their farms to the observed suids: near (0-20km) and far (>20 km). This clustering represented farmer’s opinions on contact rate of wild and domestic pigs from those that are either very close or very far away from the reserve. If any observation was made, they were asked to respond to whether they had seen the suids a) in direct contact with domestic pigs (physical contact) b) on their farms (close to domestic pigs) or c) close to their farms or d) elsewhere. They were also asked to comment on diseases of their domestic pigs and about potential outbreaks of ASF occurring in the area. Farmers were asked if their pigs got sick or died from any disease. If affirmative they provided symptoms. They also were asked to name diseases that were prevalent in the study area.