Develop sustainable link chains for the livestock industry

On October 25^th, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien chaired an online conference to deploy solutions to stabilize the production, processing and consumption of livestock products.

Low demand and difficulty in circulation cause prices to drop

According to the Department of Livestock Production, in the past nine months, the total output reached over 4.7 million tons of pork, over 12 billion eggs and nearly 900,000 tons of milk. The livestock sector’s production value is estimated to increase by 4.2%.

The Covid-19 epidemic caused many provinces and cities across the country to implement social distancing, so the demand for food has decreased significantly by 30-50% in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The epidemic also disrupted a series of production and supply chains, causing the price of input materials to increase especially animal feed (up by 16-36%), while the output price is very low. There was a short period when livestock products were sold with the price of only 25-30% of the cost. White industrial chicken is an evident example.

Despite all these facts, the price of pigs and chickens for slaughter is expected to rise again in the next two weeks since the Covid-19 epidemic is under control.

There will be many large-scale livestock chains

Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien affirmed that product backlog is unexpected and unpredictable, but this is a normal phenomenon in production and distribution. The prerequisite solution is therefore good prevention of Covid-19 and the best answer is vaccination. Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien said that it is necessary to request the Government and local People's Committees to allocate vaccines for the agriculture sector’s human resources.

As stated by the Deputy Minister, the matter of connecting supply and demand needs further promotion. This might solve the problems raised by practice in the current context. Mr. Phung Duc Tien affirmed: “There was a very clear effect when the Working Group 970 actively connected supply and demand for the southern provinces. The MARD will proactively work with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to make more progress in this matter.”

Regarding processing, the Deputy Minister assessed that the Southeast region is an area with great potential for livestock and processing development, but the current development speed is still slow.

“The state can support infrastructure, but investment requires enterprises. The provinces must at least have investment to the end of the work to create favorable conditions for development, not to mention it must be associated with the raw material area," said the Deputy Minister.

Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien emphasized: “connection means strength”. In the next two to three years there will be many large-scale livestock production chains with a standard scale of goods ratio.