Mekong delta shifts to swine breeding in value chains

Cattle and poultry breeding is one of the strength in the Mekong delta region, however, animal husbandry has faced difficulties including often falling in price, disease outbreaks causing giant losses for breeders. The industry re-structuring for risk reduction and sustainable development is an urgent matter.

Districts Chau Thanh and Sa Dec of Dong Thap province have been the baskets for raising hogs for years pork value chains; yet household based pig producers moaned about price drop and disease outbreaks leading to big losses.

Breeder Duong Thi Be in Tan Phu Trung Commune of Chau THanh district said that breeders have been bedeviled by African Swine Fever outbreaks.

Annually, Mrs. Be raises a hundred of hogs and breeding pigs. In the first quarter of 2019, she sold pigs at the price of VND40,000- VND50,000 per kilogram to earn profit; unfortunately, she was unprofitable to sell pigs at VND30,000 per kilogram because it fell in outbreaks of ASF.

Sharing his sadness, breeder Tran Hoang Nam in My Tho Town in Tien Giang Province said in early 2017, pigs price fell drastically below cost of production because of oversupply. Though Vietnamese people were being urged to eat more pork to help an industry in crisis, pig farmers have still been losing VND6,000- VND12,000 a kilogram.

In 2018, breeders tried to re-raise pig herds since price went up but their happiness ended up when the deadly virus devastates the pig industry.

According to departments of agriculture and rural development in Mekong delta provinces, the virus spread quickly across the region and many herds of pigs have been culled. Presently, provincial authorities paid attention to fighting the disease and giving financial support to breeders.

Deputy Chairman of People’s Committee in Dong Thap Nguyen Thanh Hung said the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and competent agencies worked together to take care of the healthy hogs warning breeders not to re-raise their animal while the virus still was plaguing.

Breeders in An Giang province were laying sleepless worrying over the disease meantime competent in the province were working hard to curb fresh outbreaks.

Pig breeding is a traditional and important branch of the agriculture in the Mekong delta region, but, in contract, the industry has problems.

Vice Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Tien Giang Province Cao Van Hoa said that despite having large herds of pigs in the Mekong delta, most of small-scale farms in Tien Giang are unconnected to grasp market information.

Plus, decreased price and disease outbreaks have led to a drop of pig herds.

Similarly, Head of the Department of Husbandry and Veterinary in Dong Thap Province admitted due to above-mentioned difficulties coupling with high cost of advanced technological application, hog herds dropped from 600,000 to 200,000 and could decrease further.

In other provinces in the Mekong delta, local authorities supported breeders to raise waterfowl as per their financial condition.

For long-term plan, administrations in provinces will push ahead with industrial farms and reduce household farms as well as build processing and slaughtering systems.