Where is the industry commander?

Many people in my hometown, Quang Ngai, have temporarily stopped eating pork leg noodles - their favorite dish every morning, and instead eat other dishes like beef noodles, duck porridge, etc. Next, people in Gia Lai are doing the same. My mother said that the rural market is now limiting pork sales, and the area where sea fish is sold is crowded with buyers. The stall of the woman who sells pork has switched to selling chicken, at an unusually high price. All because of concerns about African swine fever (ASF).

It must be affirmed that pig raising has never been in such a difficult situation. For farmers, pigs, cows, chickens... are assets. They are savings, in case of illness or to send children to school. The money invested in pig raising is not small, for small farmers it is millions, and for larger scale enterprises it is up to tens of billions or hundreds of billions of VND. The damage caused by ASF was recorded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment with huge numbers: from February 2019 to the end of 2020, the whole country had to destroy nearly 9 million tons of pork, causing a loss of about 30,000 billion VND. In the following years and especially at the present time, when the epidemic is raging, the total damage will certainly be not small!

Faced with the widespread situation of ASF, the Party Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued an official dispatch to the Standing Committees of the Provincial and Municipal Party Committees directly under the Central Government, requesting a synchronous and drastic focus on prevention and control solutions. This is the second time the Ministry has issued a document on ASF from the perspective of "The Party must get involved", to raise the level and bind the responsibility of localities, because the Ministry does not have full authority to fight the epidemic, but it is also the responsibility of the localities. In addition, the Ministry also sent a delegation of officials to inspect and guide epidemic prevention in localities...

However, the reality shows that those solutions are not strong enough, the medicine is not enough. It must be clearly determined that ASF not only causes damage to farmers and the agricultural economy , but also seriously affects the kitchen of Vietnamese families. From now until Lunar New Year, there are less than 6 months, too short a time to build a pig herd to supply meat for the holidays. Of course, we cannot accept the excuse "not afraid of meat shortage because we still import!?". Because our country's strength is agriculture, so why spend hundreds of millions of USD on imports? It should be noted that, in February this year alone, the meat industry spent 10,000 billion VND to import meat; in 2024, the import of all kinds of pork worth 460 million USD.

The first solution to prevent the epidemic from spreading is to deploy vaccination; if the vaccine is proven effective and safe, farmers will be forced to vaccinate their pigs; if they do not comply, they will be banned from raising them. Quickly establish a "special task force" of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment to each locality with the epidemic to guide how to handle it; if any place does not properly implement disease prevention solutions, allowing an epidemic or recurrence, it will be reported and held accountable; promptly report and ask for opinions from the Government and the Prime Minister on issues beyond their authority such as funding, local veterinary staff, and even propose disciplinary action against local officials who do not seriously control and prevent the epidemic.

In particular, guiding farmers to raise clean pigs, ensuring food input for the pig herd is also protecting the health of people at the dinner table. These are all tasks and responsibilities of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment!

KINDNESS

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/tu-lenh-nganh-o-dau-post806875.html