Loss in livestock farming, 'eaten' all the red book and car

2 years of hard work

The report on the development of livestock and poultry in our country shows that in the past 5 years, livestock farming has been a field with a stable growth rate, reaching 4.5-6%/year. Meat output from 6.6 million tons in 2018, by 2022 increased to nearly 7.36 million tons.

According to Mr. Pham Kim Dang - Deputy Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), in recent years, pig farming has had great fluctuations in total herd and meat output, falling to a record low in 2019 due to African swine fever, then recovering to 29.1 million heads in 2022. In 2022, pig farming will rank 5th in the world in terms of head and 6th in the world in terms of meat output.

Vietnam is also one of the countries with the largest poultry population in the world, and the second largest waterfowl population in the world.

By the end of September 2023, the output of live pigs is estimated to reach over 3.63 million tons, an increase of 6.8% over the same period in 2022; the output of live poultry meat is 1.74 million tons, an increase of 6%; poultry eggs are 14.2 billion, an increase of 5.6%...

Vietnam is one of the countries with the largest poultry flocks in the world (Photo: Anh Sinh)

However, the livestock industry is facing many limitations and difficulties. In the first 9 months of 2023, the prices of livestock products fluctuated greatly, but the prices of food did not fluctuate much. From that, it can be seen that profit sharing is not guaranteed, he acknowledged.

Giving an overview of the poultry industry, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son - Chairman of the Vietnam Poultry Association, said that over the past 2 years, the livestock industry has had to "struggle" to overcome difficulties due to the market crisis, post-Covid-19, and the price of animal feed has skyrocketed. Never before have livestock farmers been as pessimistic and struggling as they are now. Even leading enterprises in the poultry industry have suffered heavy losses of hundreds of billions of dong.

Mr. Vu Anh Tuan, Deputy General Director of CP Vietnam Livestock Joint Stock Company, admitted that recently, prices have fluctuated erratically, diseases have spread, and smuggled goods have flooded in, causing heavy losses for farmers.

Millions of livestock farming households suffer pain

Chairman of the Vietnam Livestock Association Nguyen Xuan Duong said that in order for livestock to develop sustainably, it must grow steadily and ensure the harmony of interests of participating actors and consumers.

To do so, it is necessary to control well the epidemic problem, food safety, environment, market, and organize the supply chains.

Regarding the implementation of the livestock development strategy, according to Mr. Duong, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to reconsider. Because after Covid-19, after the African swine fever epidemic, especially when integrating, the domestic livestock market has changed in terms of herd structure and product structure.

“We don’t think that household and small-scale farms will be replaced so quickly. Many people say this is an inevitable law, but it’s not,” he said, citing that it took Korea 40 years to reduce its farms from over 600,000 to 6,000. In our country, if not well controlled, household and small-scale farms will no longer exist in just a few years.

big foot.png — In recent years, farmers have had to continuously sell pigs below cost price, suffering heavy losses (Photo: TL)

This is the people's livelihood, the people's legitimate rights must be cared for and protected. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent smuggled goods and control imported goods well. Mr. Duong emphasized that this issue is extremely important. If it is not controlled, the market cannot be protected, and production without a market is "dead".

“In recent years, livestock products have been difficult to sell, having to be sold below cost, while imports have increased, especially smuggling. Millions of farmers have suffered,” he said.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien informed that our country slaughters about 49-51 million pigs, about 2 billion poultry, and about 18 billion eggs every year... The scale of livestock development is extremely important when there are up to 6 million farming households involved in this field.

However, he also pointed out the reality that in recent years, livestock farming has suffered serious losses, unbearable losses leading to bankruptcy. Livestock farming “eats” everything into the land book, “eats” everything into the car.

This is the mainstay of the agricultural sector, but its resilience is weak, affecting its competitiveness. If this continues, Vietnam will find it difficult to attract FDI enterprises to invest in livestock farming.

For the livestock industry to grow and thrive, according to Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien, there must be a breeding industry, because breeding determines productivity and quality.

Along with that is the development of the food industry. Vietnam exported 4 billion USD worth of rice, but imported over 7 billion USD worth of raw materials for animal feed. The Deputy Minister reiterated the direction of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on the issue of self-sufficiency in raw materials for animal feed, and that it cannot be imported forever.

In addition, if livestock farming wants to increase added value, there is no other way but to increase deep processing, as he once warned that if we only think about boiled meat, braised meat and other dishes every day, we cannot eat them all.

Illegal pigs and chickens attack, livestock farmers are struggling, businesses suffer heavy losses. The livestock industry has had to struggle to overcome the crisis, but the influx of illegal pigs and chickens has made the market even more difficult. Never before have livestock farmers been as pessimistic and struggling as they are now.

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