The expectation on 970 Agricultural Connection Forum

The importance of agricultural connection forum

According to Mr. Dao Van Hung, Deputy Director of Binh Dinh Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in recent years, livestock production in the area has remained stable in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic. Binh Dinh province had over 295,820 cows, 639,250 pigs, and 8.5 million poultry at the end of September.

The province's total number of livestock and poultry has remained stable, but their prices have fallen sharply recently. Live pork prices have also increased slightly compared to the previous week but are still below.

"Breeders are suffering losses, especially in concentrated livestock establishments, because they have to pay extra costs for organizing labor for production on the spot," said Mr. Hung.

Mr. Hung suggested that the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development need a macro strategy. The Department of Livestock Production and the Livestock Association need to connect with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to restrict businesses from importing pork that does not meet quality standards.

In addition, animal feed businesses need to reorganize production to reduce production costs and connect with farmers to ensure output.

When products are ensured the output, breeders boldly reinvest to make the livestock industry stable as before.

"Farmers are looking forward to 970 Agricultural Connection Forum. Because the forum has the leading agriculture production and consumption enterprises' participation, especially exporting ones. Through the forum, the agriculture supply and demand will have a balance.

Agricultural Connection Forum is a place where businesses can make recommendations. From there, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will grasp the businesses' needs. Especially, enterprises need capital to purchase frozen products.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will propose to the Government a package to support businesses," said Mr. Dao Van Hung.

Many difficulties in output

According to Mr. Khanh, Director of Cao Khanh Poultry Breeding Company Limited in Cat Tan commune, Phu Cat district, Binh Dinh province, commercial chickens output is facing the most severe difficulty.

During the Covid-19 epidemic, the Vietnamese chicken prices in the South were VND 55,000 per kilogram and VND 52,000 in the Central. But now, in the Covid-19's condition of the new normal, chickens prices have profoundly decreased by VND 10,000-15,000, to VND 40,000 - 41,000 per kilogram.

This is a consequence of the fact that many provinces and cities have implemented social distancing, which affects the time of the herd resumption. In addition, a lot of chickens on large farms are being overgrown. Continuously falling prices make it difficult for businesses to recover capital.

Currently, according to Mr. Khanh, the reason for the decrease in chicken prices is that restaurants and industrial kitchens have not reopened yet, and many people in big cities go back to their hometowns, making food demands cannot go up.

Commercial chicken prices and consumption are low, leading the chicken breed prices also to decrease. During the social distancing time, chicken breed prices were only VND 10,000-11,000 per head, sometimes VND 5,000-6,000 per head, 40-50% below the cost.

Poultry rearing is also agricultural leaders' most significant concern in preparing food for this year's Lunar New Year. This is usually a time when meat demand increases by about 10-15%.

The livestock industry's objective for the whole of 2021 is to maintain the average growth rate of 5-6% per year and account for about 25% of the agricultural structure. Specifically, the output of all kinds is 5.8 million tonnes of all kinds, 16 billion eggs, and 1.2 million tonnes of milk.

Cao Khanh Poultry Breeding Company Limited still tries to maintain operations not to disrupt the production chain. According to Mr. Khanh, the electricity cost that the company is supported is insignificant compared to its massive loss, so it is necessary for the State's support to connect the agriculture supply and demand, primarily on loan capital from the bank.