Proposal to support freezing meat due to African swine fever

According to Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien, freezing is one of the most urgent and effective solutions to purchase clean pigs - Photo: TT

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that African swine fever is occurring in 44 provinces and cities and can spread to all provinces and large-scale livestock farms.

"Freezing is one of the most urgent and effective solutions: purchasing clean pigs and freezing them so that in the following months, when the supply decreases, it can be resupplied to the market. Therefore, it needs to be implemented as soon as possible. This will also reduce the budget to support the destruction of pigs infected with African swine fever, reducing environmental pollution," said Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien.

Deputy Director of Dong Nai Department of Industry and Trade Le Van Loc said that the most difficult thing for this locality is not having a cold storage that meets the standards.

"We have considered renting a warehouse at a price of 1 USD/ton per day and found that it is still more profitable than the State supporting the destruction. Therefore, I propose that the Ministry of Industry and Trade take the lead in building a large, centralized frozen warehouse in a key province in each region so that neighboring localities can coordinate together to carry out freezing" - Mr. Le Van Loc proposed.

On the afternoon of May 30, the Ministry of Industry and Trade held an urgent meeting to develop a mechanism to support the purchase, slaughter, and freezing of pigs to stabilize market supply and demand - Photo: CHI TUE

A representative of Vinh Anh Food Technology Joint Stock Company said that the company has frozen 500 tons, but the company's warehouses are currently overloaded, making freezing difficult.

The company also hopes that the State will support preferential loans as quickly as possible to support businesses freezing pork because the cost of this activity is quite high, and at the same time support the cost of renting cold storage because each month it spends more than 200 million VND on warehouse rent and electricity.

"At present, pork prices are very low and difficult to sell. In particular, what is more worrying is that in the coming months there will be no pork to sell, not the selling price," Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai emphasized.

According to Mr. Thang, this is not only the work of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development but also the work of the whole country. With its responsibility, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will do its best to ensure market supply and demand.

The Domestic Market Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that since March, after African swine fever spread in the Northern and Central provinces, the price of live pigs has decreased across the board and by early April the price of pigs had recovered slightly and now the price of pigs has continued to decrease sharply with common prices fluctuating from 28,000 - 33,000 VND/kg.

Meanwhile, the next 3 months are the low point for pork consumption due to heat and disease, so the pressure on the pig farming industry is even greater.

Therefore, purchasing, slaughtering and freezing pork is one of the necessary solutions to ensure supply and stabilize the market at the end of the year and the Lunar New Year 2020.