Farmers have no more pigs to sell.

With more than 20 years of experience in pig farming, Mr. Thinh stood firm during the "price storm" in 2016 - 2017, blue ear disease, and foot-and-mouth disease in 2018. But African swine fever "knocked him out".

At the end of May 2019, the pigs started to stop eating, their ears turned purple and they gradually died. The test results were positive, his farm was the first place to detect African swine fever virus in the commune, 260 pigs were destroyed. The veterinary agency and the commune government advised him not to restock and asked him to sign a commitment to bear the losses.

"If you raise pigs for a day, you will lose tens of millions. If the pigs are healthy and the price is kept at this level, you might be able to recover some of your capital," Mr. Thinh said, calculating that if he fattens the pigs to 120 kg and sells them, it will take a month, and after deducting the cost of feed, he can earn more than 50 million VND. Day and night, he goes out to the pigsty to check on them, "if he sees any that don't eat, he has to call the trader to sell them immediately."

In Ngoc Lu commune, once known as the "pig capital of the North", not many people dare to take risks like Mr. Thinh. Before the African swine fever outbreak, the commune had more than 400 households raising pigs with more than 45,000 heads, now there are only nearly 40 households raising pigs for fattening. The vast rows of barns are covered with white lime powder. Many households have demolished barns to plant trees or repaired them to raise chickens and ducks.

At the intersection of Thuong Market, Ngoc Lu Commune, there are 6 new women selling fruits, household plastic items, and groceries. They used to be "barefoot tycoons" who owned a herd of several thousand pigs, but then price storms and consecutive epidemics drained all their capital.

Nguyen Thi Nhung’s fruit stall was recently built with iron bars from a barn that once housed 1,000 pigs. During the African swine fever outbreak, her family lost nearly 1.5 billion VND, and she has only received a portion of the support, which she must use to pay off her debt.

Pig destruction in Nghe An. Photo: Document

Ms. Nhung never thought of giving up pig farming forever, but "didn't know where to get the money" to start production again. She and her husband are currently in debt of nearly 2 billion VND. "When we have to sell pigs cheaply, people call it a loss of capital. My family is bankrupt now," Ms. Nhung said.

Talking about the plan to restore the pig herd after the epidemic, Chairman of Ngoc Lu commune, Mr. Tran Dinh Thien sighed: "The title of the pig capital of the North may have to be given to another place. Raising pigs is too risky, we are encouraging people to raise poultry in the short term, and in the long term to switch to other jobs."

Statistics from the People's Committee of Binh Luc district at the end of December 2019 showed that the district's total pig herd had decreased from 147,000 to 1/3, to only 58,000 after the epidemic. Of which, pork pigs had decreased from 133,000 to 53,000.