Calling for contribution to make livestock industry more sustainable

For the first time, the Department of Livestock Production has held a comprehensive conference with the participation of associations, businesses to contribute to the sustainable development of the livestock industry.

Spaces for the livestock industry to reduce prices is now relying much on cutting conditions for business and specialized check procedures combined with pushing up the application of 4.0 technology in management and operation. Photo: Nguyen Huan.

According to Hoang Kim Giao, former Director of the Department of Livestock Production, Vietnam should focus on developing big cattle because we have advantages and it will help Vietnam avoid relying too much on imported raw materials for feed production. Since then, Giao said that it's necessary to have strategies on breeds, farming process, fattening, and raw feed for grazing animals to achieve high economic efficiency.

Nguyen Thanh Son, President of Vietnam Poultry Association suggested, the Department of Livestock Production should speed up administrative procedure reform towards the abolishment of conformity procedures. Changing the approach, treating people and businesses as entities to serve not objects to be managed.

Regarding to increased animal feed prices, Nguyen Thi Huong, Vice President of Viet Nam Veterinary Pharmaceutical Association raised question:" Why don't we have a project, strategy to be self-sufficient in raw materials for animal feed. Hương said that if Vietnam can't be self-sufficient in seeds, feed, livestock industry will not develop sustainably.

Doan Xuan Truc, vice chairman of the Animal Husbandry Association of Vietnam said Vietnam spends billions of US dollars every year on importing corn, soybean for animal feed production but all cassava is sold out to China. In addition, there is not any methodical and in-depth research on rice bran and the application of this product in animal feed production; thereby gradually reducing the dependence on imported raw materials.

Nguyen Van Tue, Deputy Director of Dabaco Vietnam Corporation asked the Department of Livestock Production to advise the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Science and Technology to soon abolish conformity procedures for animal feed, shorten administrative procedures; one criterion published can be applied for many trade names, helping businesses avoiding waste of money. In the long term, Tue said that livestock industry needs to have specialized preferential policies to attract business to invest in slaughtering, processing, brand building, restructuring the industry towards added values.

According to Vu Anh Tuan, Deputy General Director of CP Vietnam, opening market to meat and meat products of other countries need to be fair and have a reasonable roadmap. According to Tuan, currently many countries still permit the use of Ractopamine in livestock farming but Vietnam bans this animal feed additive. While using Ractopamine will reduce the cost of livestock production a lot. Therefore if we open up the market to imported meat it will be unfair to domestic businesses.

In addition, the conformity procedures other countries no longer apply are still used in Vietnam which creates an unfair competition between domestically manufactured animal feed and imported animal feed. Therefore, like other businesses, Tuan agreed to ask for the abolishment of conformity procedures to lower cost of livestock production.

Nguyen Chi Cong, Deputy General Director of Japfa Comfeed Vietnam also agreed with the proposal of abolishing conformity regulations in the field of animal feed and supplements because in fact, these are just administrative procedures and they are not useful for better management of animal feed. As for processes of management and inspection of the quality of animal feed, despite of the abolishment of conformity regulations, Cong affirmed that the current regulations still help the Department of Livestock Production manage animal feed effectively.

And, Dao Manh Luong, General Director of Marvin Group proposed the Department of Livestock Production, the Ministry of Home Affairs to establish Pig Association because this sector is very important to livestock industry but it has not had an association yet.

Regarding to animal feed prices, Luong shared: "We are not self-sufficient in raw materials, so it's impossible to manage prices. Dao Manh Luong emphasized that the Law on Livestock Production has been issued and put into practice.  Policies on added-value tax were removed. What needed Government gave supports, so if the livestock industry wants to be competitive the only solution is to lower prices.

Space for reducing cost of livestock production, accroding to Luong the first thing is removing unnecessary administrative procedures to lower costs, in which the regulations such as conformity procedures, testing for nutritional standards at ports and quarantine should be abolished as soon as possible because these are unnecessary costs that increase prices.

Moreover, Dao Manh Truong said "It is now global economy we should do what are our strengths and what we find uncompetitive we should stop. For example, DGCP, we have apatite mines so we should invest in to be self-sufficient in DGCP instead of spending time on researching to grow soybean while soybean produced in Vietnam is not enough to make tofu".

"There must be policies to encourage stakeholders to take part in the circular and closed value chain.  There must be leading cranes for others to follow.  Farming is now no longer 3F - Farm- Feed-Food but move to 4F including Fertilizer - Organic Fertilizer. At present, Marvin group is applying the model turning manure in livestock production into fertilizer for corn and using that corn as input material for animal feed production. This is a solution that both reduces cost in livestock production and protects environment", General Director of Marvin Group, Dao Manh Luong said.

Acting Director of the Department of Livestock Production thanked for the qualified, enthusiastic, meaningful and feasible contributions of associations, businesses and experts in the field of animal husbandry.  

Basing on these valuable contributions, the Department of Livestock Production will be well-equiped to advise the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development , Government to have suitable adjustments in the strategy of sustainable livestock development in the future.

In the short run, leaders of the Department of Livestock Production proposed the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to issue documents to delay time of applying conformity regulation for animal feed, extending one year to July 1, 2022 in order to continue researches and amending to comply with the provisions of the law.