Vietnamese enterprises massively increase poultry farming

Since the outbreak of African Swine Fever, recently, several enterprises and farm owners have flocked to shift investment to poultry farming to create alternative meat sources while the price of chicken meat imported into Vietnam was fairly low, at just around VND18,000 per kilogram.

According data by the Department of Livestock Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the first six months of this year, total poultry flocks across the whole country had risen by 7.5 percent and poultry egg production had nearly reached 7 billion eggs, up 11.4 percent.

As pig farming in many places faced epidemic, farm owners have massively switched to poultry farming. Quickly shifting to poultry farming will help to provide alternative meat sources; however, massively and spontaneously shifting will cause serious consequences when supply exceeds demand.

Analyzing the structure of animal husbandry products, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Duong, acting director of the Department of Livestock Production, said that the golden ratio at many countries is that pigs account for around 40 percent, poultry makes up for 40 percent and the rest is other animal husbandry products. However, in Vietnam, pigs account for up to 70 percent of meat production structure while poultry holds around 20 percent, cattle takes about 7 percent and the rest is other types of fish. Therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has had a policy to raise the ratio of poultry and cattle in the structure of meats but only around 7 percent for poultry and 5 percent for beef. If the ratio of poultry increases heavily, it will causes many risks for farmers.

While poultry farming is on the verge of increasing massively and overproduction and might suffer losses for a long time, currently, farm owners have also been facing double risk as the price of chicken imported from the US is extremely low.

Report from the General Department of Vietnam Customs said that in the first half of this year, enterprises had imported 62,400 tons of chicken from the US with a total import turnover of US$48.6 million. So, the average price of chicken imported from the US was merely below VND18,000 per kilogram. It is forecasted that import volume might increase in the last months of this year if US farm produce still encounters difficulties in consumption.