pig herd

Unlike prior years, prices of pork, chicken and other foods this year fell in the run-up to the Tet holiday ( the Lunar New Year).

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien affirmed that the ministry would focus on market solutions, striving to achieve an export turnover of US$50 billion of agricultural, forestry, and fishery products by the end of the year at a press conference on food supply in the last months of 2022 held on the afternoon of October 3 in Hanoi.

The price increase of rice bran in July has correspondingly pushed pork prices up to no end. Consumers have become more concerned because this means a butterfly effect on prices of various food types that use pork as an ingredient.

The prices of some consumer goods and fresh food for sale at small and spontaneous points of sale in Ho Chi Minh City have started to hike in the past few days. Sellers explained that freight costs started to climb, so the increase in selling price was inevitable. Meanwhile, large supermarkets and trade centers confirmed that they still run many promotions and offer deep discounts to support consumers.

After a sharp decline, lately, the price of live hogs has continuously climbed, prompting farmers to make a plan to repopulate their pig herds in time for the festive season.

In the long term, the Chairman of the Vietnam Poultry Association said that it is necessary to consider soon reducing dependence on the import market by actively producing and supplying raw materials for animal feed domestically.

Every time China stops importing agricultural products or when the Covid-19 pandemic happens, several agricultural products are unsalable, then the rescue of them to support farmers will take place repeatedly. According to many experts, the sector needs to accelerate parallel solutions, such as reducing loan interest rates, applying land rental support policies, and providing information on global production, to escape from this situation.

As of June 30, Vietnam will halt the import of live pigs from Thailand into Vietnam because the veterinary authority has recently discovered that a batch of nearly 1,000 pigs imported from this country was infected with African swine fever (ASF).

Pork supply remains plentiful in markets, and the demand for pork has decreased. Pig farmers have been repopulating pig herds to serve the needs of the people during the festive season. There is, obviously, no shortage of pork, but the prices of pork have increased sharply.

Despite being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to calculations, the export turnover of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector of Vietnam will reach the previously-set target of US$40 billion this year, heard at the regular press conference of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on October 6 in Hanoi.

The People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has sent documents to localities ordering pig repopulation under the "Project on restructuring the pig industry in the period from 2021 to 2025" to revive husbandry, reduce the risk of disease recurrence, and meet consumer demand.

The Department of Statistics of Dong Nai Province informed that by the end of June this year, the total pig herd of the province merely reached 2.03 million pigs, down 18 percent compared to that before the African swine fever epidemic.

The Department of Livestock Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on July 17 said that Vietnamese businesses have been importing breeding pigs from Thailand, Canada, the US and Taiwan (China) with half of the import coming from Thailand.

Vietnam is targeting more than 90 percent of its communes and wards being free of African swine fever (ASF) by 2022 and the country being free of the disease by 2025.

Visiting farms raising breeding pigs for the recovery of pig farming in My Duc Commune in An Lao District in Hai Phong City on July 7, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that repopulation is the only sustainable solution to create food supply and in the fourth quarter, there will be 11 million piglets for the market.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), in the afternoon of June 17, the first 500 live pigs imported from Thailand entered Vietnam through Lao Bao Border Gate in the Central province of Quang Tri.