Pig and poultry sales are sluggish, but 33,000 billion VND is still spent on importing animal feed.

Although pig and poultry farming - the two sectors that account for the largest proportion of Vietnam's livestock industry - are facing difficulties and have had to reduce their herds, feed production and processing enterprises are still rushing to import animal feed because the prices of corn and soybeans from agricultural powerhouses such as the US, Argentina, India, etc. are at attractive levels.

Raw materials for animal feed production are mainly imported. Illustrative photo

According to data from the Center for Information Technology and Statistics (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), the estimated import value of animal feed and raw materials in May 2017 was 344 million USD, bringing the total import value of this item in the first 5 months of 2017 to 1.53 billion USD (equivalent to more than 33,000 billion VND), an increase of 27.5% over the same period in 2016.

The main import markets for this group of products in the first four months of 2017 were Argentina (accounting for 44.7% of the market share), followed by the US (13%), India (accounting for 5% of the market share) and China (4.2%). The markets with the strongest growth compared to the same period in 2016 were Italy (up nearly 9 times) and India (up more than 2 times).

Of which, the volume of imported corn in May 2017 is estimated at 809,000 tons with a value of 161 million, bringing the volume and value of imported corn in the first 5 months of 2017 to 3.05 million tons and 625 million USD, up 1.5% in volume and 6.2% in value compared to the same period in 2016.

Argentina and Brazil were the two main corn import markets of Vietnam in the first 4 months of 2017, accounting for 28.6% and 20.3% of the total import value of this item, respectively. Notably, in the first 4 months of 2017, the corn import volume from the Thai market increased more than 48 times compared to the same period in 2016, but the value only increased more than 4.5 times.

According to some experts, although Vietnam has had many policies to encourage the conversion of crop structure from rice to corn to serve livestock, in reality it is not effective. Due to the characteristics of fragmented land and divided infrastructure, corn cultivation in our country is difficult to apply mechanization, resulting in low productivity and much higher costs compared to agricultural powerhouses such as the US, India... For example, the price of corn imported from the US and Argentina to Vietnam's ports is only about 4,700 VND/kg, always lower than the price of domestically grown corn, low humidity; the price of soybean residue is also less than 10,000 VND/kg.

In response to concerns that Vietnam is an agricultural country but has to import large quantities of raw materials such as corn and soybeans, Mr. Le Ba Lich - Chairman of the Vietnam Animal Feed Association, said that if we keep thinking like that, we do not understand Vietnamese agriculture well. In fact, there is not much land for agricultural cultivation in our country; although it is an old agricultural country, the production level of farmers is small and backward. Meanwhile, other countries have industrialized agriculture so they can produce very large quantities of corn and soybeans at low prices. Corn and soybeans grown in Vietnam are almost unable to compete in price.

According to estimates, our country currently has to import 50% of the total corn output for the livestock industry, almost 100% of oil cake and nearly 100% of additives such as premix, vitamins, amino acids, color additives, and flavors used in animal feed processing. The main import markets for these items are China, European countries and Japan.

“Therefore, instead of thinking about producing a lot of corn and soybeans to serve the livestock industry, Vietnam's agricultural sector should focus on producing more advantageous products to meet domestic and export demand, and then import animal feed,” said Mr. Lich.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam currently has 207 animal feed production enterprises, including 58 FDI enterprises and 149 domestic enterprises with market shares of 60%/40%. Of these, the top 5 Vietnamese enterprises (Dabaco, Masan, GreenFeed, Vina, Lai Thieu) account for 23% of the market share; the 5 largest FDI enterprises (CP, Deheus, ANT, Jafa comfeed, Cargill) account for 37% of the market share. Some FDI enterprises, in order to maximize profits, have not prioritized raw materials in Vietnam but imported cheaper raw materials from other countries.

According to Minh Hue/danviet