Developing many scenarios for new production cycle

On September 1, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien chaired an online meeting on livestock production, food supply and demand in the last months of 2021. The meeting was co-organized by the Department of Livestock Production, some specialized units under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of 63 provinces and cities.

As a leader and a person in charge of the livestock production sector, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien stated that the sector has been in a special situation. Currently and in the near future, the demand for meat in localities, especially in the provinces and cities imposing the social distancing measures is expected to fall. However, four more months to the Lunar New Year holiday, the peak season of meat consumption, the demand is expected to jump 10-15%. Therefore, the livestock production sector should develop scenarios to ensure food supply from now to the end of the year.

 “We must be careful, avoiding imbalance between food supply and demand. If we don’t sketch out plans early to ensure supply, pork prices, CPI will be affected,” Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien said.

Apart from the issues related to CPI, the leader of the agricultural sector asked the Department of Livestock Production and relevant agencies under the MARD to focus on keeping average growth of 5-6% and accounting for 25% of the agricultural structure.

 “In the face of the new situation, we must be extremely proactive and flexible and come up with basic and practical solutions. 2021 is the first year of implementing the livestock production strategy to 2030 with vision to 2045. The fact requires officials working in the livestock production sector to be decisive and brave to create a premise for the development in the coming years,” Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien said.      

According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, by the end of June 2021, the national cow herd increased by 2.5%, the pig herd rose by 11.6% and the poultry herd increased by 5.4%. In particular, the buffalo herd reduced by 3.1% compared to the same period in 2020.

Specifically, according to the reports by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of 63 provinces and cities, there were approximately 26.67 million the pigs , 518 million poultries, 6.3 million meat cows, 331,000 dairy cows  and 2.8 million goats and ships.

In the first six months of 2021, the total of livestock output for slaughter was approximately 3.2 million tons, of which beef reached 231,000 tons, buffalo meat reached 60,900 tons, pork reached 2 million tons and poultry meat reached 932,000 tons. In addition, there were 8.4 billion eggs and 561,000 tons of fresh dairy milk. Most of indexes were up compared to the same period last year, meeting domestic demand.

In spite of the increase in output and livestock head, the livestock production sector has faced some difficulties such as the decline in pork and poultry prices; the continuous increase in animal feed prices since the beginning of 2021.

In the context of complex Covid-19 situation, the livestock production sector has been affected by many factors. Among them is the disruption of supply chain, expensive freight costs, the delay of meat processors, businesses and factories, the shutdown of restaurants, pubs and kitchens.

In addition to the above objective causes, livestock industry in Vietnam is mainly made up of smallholder farmers and do not develop in value chain, thus the consumption still face challenges.

Attending the online meeting, leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of the provinces and cities also contributed many ideas to the plan for ensuring 5.8 million tons of meat of all types, 16 billion eggs and 1.2 million tons of milk in 2021.

Deputy Director of Dong Nai Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Tran Lam Sinh said the province has promoted Covid-19 vaccination for workers directly taking part in the production in locality and around 70% of workers got the first dose. Expressing concern about the possibility of repopulating livestock herds of farming households, Sinh proposed the MARD to help the breeding establishments with connecting supply and demand via e-commerce platforms.

Vu Duc Con, Deputy Director of Dak Lak Department of Agriculture and Rural Development shared experiences in preventing and controlling lumpy skin disease (LSD) in cattle herds by asking communes and districts to actively buy vaccines. In the coming time, the province will organize vaccination for animals within 20 days and strive for the injection percentage of 80% on the whole herd.

Meanwhile, Tran Xuan Hoc, Deputy Director of Nghe An Department of Agriculture and Rural Development  paid attention to policies on credit and interest rates. He made suggestions on reducing import taxes on some animal feed ingredients such as corn, wheat, and at the same time developing separate credit packages for agricultural production and business establishments.

For Bac Giang, the province with highway infrastructure as a leverage point, Deputy Director of Bac Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Ba Thanh shared about the initiative of forming two task forces that have promoted trade and connected the consumption since the lychee crop, applying a lot of information technology, fastening digital transformation of Bac Giang, reducing costs and increasing production efficiency.

Thanks to the maintenance of livestock production, Bac Giang’s meat production reached 67,000 tons in the first six months of 2021, of which the province’s consumption only accounted for 50%. Thanh called on the provinces and cities to coordinate closely and synchronously to meet consumer demands nationwide in the last months of the year.

On the basis of the Prime Minister’s direction, considering agriculture as a premise for industrialization and the foundation for Vietnam to basically become a modern industrialized country by 2030, Deputy Minister of the MARD Phung Duc Tien directed the livestock production sector in particular and the agricultural sector as a whole to always prioritizing the benefit of tens of millions of farmers across the country.

 “We can sacrifice some short-term benefits but we must guarantee supply chains, preserving farmers, the long-term assets of the agriculture industry. Preventing and controlling the pandemic is the number one goal but we must ensure dual goals, keeping the prices of meat, eggs and milk at reasonable levels.

To achieve the goals, we all must come up with an agreement, develop many scenarios for the new production cycle to both keep the growth momentum for the Northern provinces and make up for the shortfall of the Southern region,” the Deputy Minister concluded.