HCMC – Due to poor pig prices, some 30-50% of individual farmers in Dong Nai, which has the country’s biggest pig herd, have abandoned their farms while owners of big farms with more than 1,000 head of cattle each have reduced their herd size by as much as 70%.
Pig farmers shy away from herd development
By Ngoc Hung - The Saigon Times Daily
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| A farmer is seen feeding his pig herd in Dong Nai Province. Many pig farmers in the country have quit farming due to huge losses - Photo: Ngoc Hung |
HCMC – Due to poor pig prices, some 30-50% of individual farmers in Dong Nai, which has the country’s biggest pig herd, have abandoned their farms while owners of big farms with more than 1,000 head of cattle each have reduced their herd size by as much as 70%.
Pig prices have plummeted to under VND40 million a ton, resulting in a loss of some VND5 million a ton for farmers, and driving many of them out of business. Therefore, it is highly probable that the country will face a severe shortage of pork towards the year’s end.
Asking for help
Nguyen Tri Cong, chairman of the Dong Nai Livestock Association, told the Daily that some farm owners had contacted him to borrow money or ask him to seek buyers for their farms so that they could settle their debts to banks and animal feed suppliers.
Nguyen Xuan Bao, owner of over 100 sows in Dong Nai, said he had to sell nearly 40 reserve sows, weighing some 40 kilos each, at a 50% market price to have money to repay debts to feed suppliers.
The pig farm of Cong previously had 3,000 pigs, but it is now left with only 250 ones. “After I sell this litter of pigs in late August, I will quit farming for some time, and will resume when live pig prices are stable again,” said Cong.
Le The Viet, a farmer in Bien Hoa, Dong Nai, said he did not raise new pigs after he had sold the last 50 pigs in late June. He stressed individual farmers like him did not gain any profit with the low prices of below VND40,000 per kilo, so they are seeking to switch to other business fields.
Still, Viet wondered what he would do in the coming time as he had been raising pigs for over ten years now.
A survey of the Dong Nai Livestock Association on its members shows that most farm owners with pig herds of 500 or above have scaled down their herds because they are indebted to banks and animal feed suppliers.
Blue-ear pig disease impact
Due to the far-reaching impact of blue-ear pig disease, not only individual farmers but large farms raising pigs under contracts with foreign companies also have to quit farming and even put up their farms for sale to switch to other businesses, said the Dong Nai Livestock Association.
“When foreign livestock companies find certain areas prone to outbreaks of diseases such as blue-ear pig, they will abandon the farms that raise pigs for them. As such, it is understandable that owners of these farms offer their farms for sale or move to safer areas to continue farming for foreign firms,” said Pham Hong Phuong, a veterinarian in Dong Nai.
If the unfavorable situation drags on, more farmers will give up on pig farming since livestock feed materials are marking up. Particularly, soybean meal prices have increased 16.4% in the first six months, while rice bran prices have picked up 12.5% year-on-year.
Pork undersupply in sight
The Animal Husbandry Department forecast pork consumption would rise 8-10% in the last months of the year. If the market does not improve, there might be a pork undersupply in the final months, said the department.
The department estimated that output in the rest of this year would be some 2.6 million tons of live pig, or around 1.8 million tons of pork, while consumption demand is around 370,000 tons a month, or over 2.2 million tons of pork.
Nguyen Van Truc, general director of Saigon Agriculture Incorporation (Sagri), confirmed this possibility. He said his company previously sold 12,000-15,000 pig breeds and reserve pigs every month, but the sale volume has dropped to 6,000-7,000.
Meanwhile, Cong of the Dong Nai Livestock Association, stressed the number of sows in the province is down by 30% or more. It is to say pig breed supply will decline in the coming time, while the New Year has only five months to go.
“Given the current situation, pork supply will fall short in the next four months and then pig prices will surge,” he predicted.