Lacking grassroots system, the veterinary sector faces numerous difficulties

On January 7th in Hanoi, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development had a meeting with the Ministry of Home Affairs on the project "Strengthening the capacity of the veterinary managing agencies at all levels in the period 2021 - 2030".

According to Mr. Pham Van Dong, Director of the Department of Animal Health (MARD), by the end of 2020, 7/63 provinces and cities have merged their provincial Veterinary Department with other units of the provincial agriculture; 36/63 provinces and cities have merged district veterinary stations (under provincial sub-departments) with other units of the district-level agriculture sector and transformed into Agricultural Service Centers/Economic Department under district management; 6,411 people working in veterinary at the provincial, district and commune levels have been laid off or quit their jobs.

The Director of the Department of Animal Health reflected: “the merging of veterinary stations to establish district-level agricultural service centers has resulted in many difficulties and shortcomings".

Firstly, there are no documents specifying the functions and tasks of state management and veterinary specialized management.

Secondly, there are many difficulties in the prevention of animal diseases. At present, disease monitoring, detection and reporting are delayed, even not being carried out in many places. Many localities have no veterinary force to organize epidemic prevention and control; as a result, epidemics often spread widely and persitently causing losses of thousands of billion VND.

The third difficulty is about quarantine of animals and animal products. At present, localities are lacking of officers to carry out animal quarantine, which is greatly affecting the control of the transportation of animals and animal products and causing food insecurity and increased risk of disease.

The fourth difficulty lies in controlling slaughter and veterinary hygiene inspection. The Sub-department of Livestock Production and Animal Health cannot delegate the authority to carry out slaughter control to the district level as the agricultural service centers are not directly under their management.

The fifth difficulty is in the management of veterinary drugs. The task of controlling trading conditions of veterinary drug stores has been left unmanaged.

The sixth difficulty lies in trade promotion. The newly-changed veterinary system will fail to operate in accordance with the Veterinary Law; trading partners who find that regulations are not complied with will introduce stricter management measures or even stop importing animals and animal products from Vietnam.

Lastly, there is difficulty in carrying out inspection and examination in many places.

Giving an overall remark on the difficulties that the veterinary sector has been facing in recent years, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said: The recent African swine fever has killed 6 million heads, causing serious damage, not to mention other serious diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease...

”Currently, there are still 2,700 small slaughter houses. People operate on the sidewalks, they operate on the banks of rivers, streams, and at the market... Without slaughter management, food safety cannot be guaranteed, thus affecting exports to other markets", Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien emphasized.