Agriculture Minister Explains Why Pork Prices Are Still So Expensive

That was the sharing of Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong when mentioning the story of a series of leading livestock enterprises reducing the price of live pigs to 70,000 VND/kg but the price of pork at markets and supermarkets is still too expensive.

Shortage of supply and high production costs have caused the price of live pigs to increase as recently. Photo: Internet

Minister Cuong said that the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak in 2019 caused a 20% loss in our country's pig herd, with a 9.3% loss in pork volume and meat. This is a huge loss, not only for farmers but also for the pork market price over the past long period, and currently pork prices are at a high level.

Since October last year, after the epidemic stabilized, localities have focused on herd restoration. As a result, by the end of the first quarter of this year, the total pig herd nationwide was 24 million, an increase of 6.3% compared to December 2019.

“At this rate, we believe that by the third quarter and early fourth quarter of 2020, we will reach the same volume as the peak period at the end of 2018 and at that time there will be enough volume to supply the market,” he affirmed.

Regarding the high price of pork, the Minister said that there are three main reasons. Firstly, we do not have enough pork products to supply the market as required. Because before the epidemic, we needed 910 thousand tons each quarter, recently we only reached 820-830 thousand tons. It was not until the fourth quarter that we achieved that output.

Short supply and too many intermediaries make pork prices at markets and supermarkets still too expensive. Photo: Internet

Recently, 15 large livestock enterprises in our country have lowered the price of live pigs to 70,000 VND/kg, starting from April 1. However, because the number of pigs in these enterprises is not enough, they do not have enough influence.

Second, production costs are high because biosafety measures must be ensured and all stages of livestock farming must be controlled.

The third reason why pork prices in the market are high is because there are too many intermediaries. The Minister said that from the slaughtering stage to the selling stage, everything is fragmented and small-scale, leading to difficulty in controlling prices. As a result, consumers have not benefited as we expected even though the price of live pigs has dropped to a low level.

To reduce pork prices to a reasonable level, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said that the fundamental solution is to promote herd restoration and increase. Because when there is enough supply, the price of this item can cool down.

In addition, there needs to be coordination between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and localities to reduce intermediaries, so that the path from production, processing to consumption must be as short as possible. Only then will farmers benefit and consumers will be able to eat pork at a reasonable price.

In the coming time, in addition to continuing to import pork products to a certain extent to reduce the pressure on domestic supply shortage, according to Minister Cuong, we need to guide consumers to choose many other products such as eggs, fish, poultry, seafood, etc. These foods are both good for health and have reasonable prices.