Specialty pork from Western Nghe An is scarce, priced at 200,000 VND/kg

Local black pig is a specialty of Western Nghe An, and its price remains high at the end of the year, ranging from 130,000 - 200,000 VND/kg. Photo: Quang An

The impact of African swine fever over the past two years and slow herd restoration has resulted in the local black pigs of the WestNghe AnUp to this point it is still rare and the selling price is high.

Mr. Va Cha Xa - Chairman of Muong Long Commune People's Committee (Ky Son) said: At the end of 2020, the priceblack pigThe local price is still fixed at 200,000 VND/kg (pigs under 30 kg), 130,000 VND/kg (pigs over 30 kg), but there are no pigs to buy. Currently, the local black pig herd in the commune is only over 1,000 pigs.

"For people in this highland area, at the end of the year, 3-4 households usually slaughter a local black pig together to share the meat for Tet, so the number of pigs used during Tet is quite large. Therefore, with the current pig herd, there will be a shortage during Tet because among those pigs there are both sows and suckling pigs" - Mr. Va Cha Xa worried.

Local black pigs are raised by ethnic minorities by letting them roam freely, so their meat is delicious. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Mr. Nguyen Cong Hieu - Deputy Director of the Ky Son District Agricultural Service Center said: At the end of this year, Ky Son has about 21,000 pigs, a decrease of nearly 4,000 pigs compared to the time before the African swine fever (the end of 2018). Communes with a large herd of local black pigs are Muong Long, Tay Son, and Na Ngoi. Thus, the shortage of local black pigs at the end of the year is likely to occur.

On the siteXiangyang DistrictAt this time, local black pigs are also sold for between 130,000 and 190,000 VND/kg of live pigs. Mr. Lo Kham Kha - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Tuong Duong district said: Currently, the local pig herd is about 20,000 pigs, of which sows are about 5%. Compared to the time before the African swine fever epidemic, the local pig herd is now down 3,000 pigs. Thus, during the upcoming Lunar New Year, due to the high demand for pork, there will be a shortage of pigs in Tuong Duong, and it is predicted that the price of local black pigs will be high.

According to some pig traders, pigs raised in villages and communes further from the district center are more expensive. The reason is that in remote areas, people raise native pigs, which are small in weight and slow to grow, so the meat quality is better.

Pork tables sold at Muong Xen market (Ky Son) are mainly farmed pork, transported from the lowlands. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Observations at markets in Ky Son, Tuong Duong... show that the amount of pork sold here is mainly farm pigs transported from the lowlands, or foreign pigs, transported from the lowlands to be raised in the highlands, and there is very little local black pork for sale.

At the centralized slaughterhouse ofKy Son districtshows that most of the pigs kept in pens awaiting slaughter are large farm pigs brought in by pig slaughterers in neighboring communes. Pig slaughterers said that local black pigs can only be bought occasionally, not enough to supply meat to the people, so they have to buy farm pigs to slaughter to meet the demand for pork in the area.

Local black pigs are a specialty of Western Nghe An, because they are mainly raised free-range, without using industrial feed, so the meat is firm, delicious, and favored by consumers. During the Lunar New Year, many people with economic conditions in the lowlands buy black pigs from the highlands to slaughter./.