HCMC – Local pig farm owners these days are grappling with huge difficulties as the live pig price has tumbled far below production cost, causing huge losses for them.
The live pig price in Dong Nai, the biggest pig farming province in Vietnam, has been hovering around VND32,000 a kilo, while production cost is estimated to range between VND37,000 and VND42,000, Nguyen Tri Cong, chairman of Dong Nai Province’s Husbandry Association, said.
With the current selling price, farmers are suffering a loss of VND10,000/kilo on average, or VND1 million for a standard-size pig of 100 kilos. Therefore, some farm owners have scaled down their herds, or even abandoned their farms for fear of losses ballooning.
Data of the Dong Nai Livestock Association showed that the total herd of the province currently stands at 1.8 million pigs compared to 1.2-1.5 million in previous years.
These days, many small farm owners (about 20 pigs) have to sell pigs at a loss in order to have money for spending during the upcoming Lunar New Year.
In addition, farmers have to sell pigs weighing from 90 to 100 kilos each at reduced prices to traders in order to ease damage when pigs become oversized and turn much cheaper.
Despite the fall in pig selling price, input costs of animal feed and veterinary drugs have skyrocketed, putting many farmers at risk of bankruptcy, Cong added.
Most companies manufacturing veterinary medicines have increased prices by up to 17%, making life worse for struggling farmers.
For the above reasons, the provincial association has written to the Agriculture Ministry asking that local companies manufacturing and trading in these input materials not to raise prices at this time to ease the burden for pig farm owners.
Besides, the association believes that this is a suitable time for the pig farming sector to tighten links with slaughterhouses and distribution companies to harmonize production with market demand
- Compiled by VietnamCredit -
