Temporarily imported meat and viscera products into Vietnam to be stopped

After the price of pork dropped sharply at the beginning of 2017 to just 50% of the price in the same period last year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has just issued Official Letter No. 3046 / BN- CN to the Prime Minister on a number of measures to stabilize livestock development.

There should be an adjustment of the quality of breeding stock and breeding methods for each market segment.

After a period of hot development in the livestock sector, especially pork and animal feed processing industry, there have been some shortcomings in the market, especially in the pork market. The price of pork has fallen down to 30,000 vnd per kg, especially in the coming summer months, causing serious losses to livestock farmers.

In order to stabilize and develop livestock in general and pig production in particular (the pig production occupies nearly 70% of the market share of livestock products as well as the structure of daily food consumption of the people), the Ministry of Industry and Rural Development has made some immediate and long-term solutions.

In particular, the immediate solution is to request the Prime Minister to assign the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance and localities to enhance the direction of enterprises in the application of technological measures in order to save costs, reduce production costs and prices of livestock products, especially feed and veterinary medicine to reach the lowest price in the region. Also, the authorities have accelerated negotiating measures to find markets for livestock products, especially pig production in both the border and cross-border areas.

At the same time, the Government has instructed banks and credit organizations to have solutions for debt relief for livestock and poultry breeders and businesses in livestock feed and veterinary medicine.

The Government has also required competent units which are capable of stockpiling and processing meat such as Vissan, Viet Duc, Hapro Hanoi, Saigon Co.op, Saigon Agriculture Corporation and military units to strengthen poultry stock for the upcoming summer months.

The Government has also considered stopping the temporary import for re-export of meat and viscera products from outside into the Vietnamese market in order to protect the market share of domestic animal products, thereby limiting the risk of diseases, the risk of "dirty food" in the domestic market, causing traffic infrastructure degradation due to large volume of nearly 3 million tons of goods in transit through Vietnam every year.

In the long run, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, localities should review and restrict the opening of new industrial animal feed processing units. Reportedly, the total capacity of registered factories has reached over 31 million tons, far exceeding the planned target of 2020 with 25 million tons.

The localities should reduce the size of pigs, especially the sow and adjustment of the quality of breeding stock and breeding methods for each market segment. In particular, increasing organic farming which is the strength of the farm sector and characteristic of Vietnamese livestock industry.

In addition, the localities should reorganize livestock production through chains, which maximizes the role of enterprises, associations, and cooperatives to better control quality, food safety, supply and demand for livestock products.