Nghe An: Why is pig farming struggling?

(Baonghean) - Nghe An is a province with a developed livestock industry. In addition to the current herd of 750,000 buffalo and cows, the province currently has more than 915,000 pigs. However, many pig farms are currently facing difficulties in exporting their products due to plummeting prices and lack of outlets.

Each pig lost 1 million dong.

These days, pig farms, households and households in the province are restless because the price of live pigs has dropped dramatically. Being a locality near Vinh city, Hung Nguyen district has identified animal husbandry as its strength to serve the city's consumption. Currently, the whole district has 60 pig farms, each farm has an average of 50 pigs and has up to 3,000 pigs, mainly pigs for meat and piglets. However, most of the farms are currently having difficulty selling pigs and are borrowing, taking from one place to beat another to maintain the pigs that are old enough to be sold.

Raising pigs on a commercial scale is an economic development direction for many households. Photo: Hong Son

Mr. Vo Ngoc Duyen in hamlet 16, Hung Thang commune has raised pigs for 16 years and has just invested 1.6 billion VND in the farm. Last year, the selling price of live pigs was 50,000 VND/kg, each pig earned a profit of 500,000 - 700,000 VND. Recently, the price of live pigs has continuously decreased and it is very difficult to sell. In the previous batch, Mr. Duyen raised 70 pigs. When the pigs reached the weight for sale, the price dropped to 28,000 VND/kg, resulting in a loss of 500,000 - 800,000 VND per pig.

Mr. Duyen said: "My family currently has nearly 50 sows and 120 pigs. Every time I sell a pig, I lose 1 million VND. A 100 kg pig costs 4 million VND to sell, but I can only sell it for 3 million VND (if I can sell live pigs, it will be 30,000 VND/kg). Last year, breeding pigs were sold for 1 million VND/pig, but now they are down to 400,000 VND/pig, and I still can't sell them."

The price of pigs has dropped and there are no buyers, so Mr. Duyen has to sell each pig individually to the villagers. “But not every day there are buyers. The price of live pigs has dropped, and many pig farmers are worried because of their mounting debts.”

We visited Ho Van Cuong's farm in Hung Tan commune and witnessed a similar situation. Cuong raises 200 pigs for meat, and in recent months, he has lost more than 100 million VND. Cuong said that a few months ago, he sold pigs for 35,000 VND/kg, but now no one is buying them anymore. He has exhausted all the money he borrowed from everywhere to buy food for the pigs, and now he only dares to feed them spoonfuls a day to survive. When asked, "Why don't you slaughter each pig to sell in the village?", Cuong said: "Everyone in the village raises pigs, every household slaughters them, sometimes I have to slaughter one pig all day to sell it all. All the pig buyers said they wouldn't buy them."

The more you raise, the more you lose is the common situation of pig farmers today. Mr. Tran Quoc Trung - Chairman of the Farm Economics Association of Hung Nguyen district, who is also one of the households raising pigs and sows with a scale of hundreds of pigs in Hung Nguyen, said: "At this time last year, the average price of live pigs was 50,000 VND/kg, now it has dropped below 30,000 VND/kg but still cannot be sold. The more you raise, the more you lose, but the farms have not been able to find a solution to the current situation.

There are currently about 60 pig farms in the district that are in such a situation. We are meeting to save ourselves. The reason, as far as I know, is that China is not buying, but I don’t know why. Currently, pig farms are all in debt, debt piled up, some farms have gone bankrupt.”

Farmers in Hung Tan commune (Hung Nguyen) are in dire straits because of low pork prices. Photo: Tran Chau

In Nghi Loc district, pig farming is also a strength. On average, each year the district develops a total pig herd of 17,000 - 21,000 pigs. With the current low pig prices, pig farmers in the district have suffered losses of more than 10 billion VND.

In 2013, Ms. Le Thi Hang's family in hamlet 15B, Nghi Kieu commune invested hundreds of millions of VND to build a closed pig farm with a biogas tank, with a scale of more than 40 pigs/batch. On average, every 4 months, her family sells each batch (equivalent to 3 tons of live pigs) and earns over 200 million VND annually. But since the beginning of the year, the price of live pigs has dropped to 30,000 VND/kg, (down 10,000 VND/kg) compared to the same period last year. Therefore, her family is extremely worried because the price of feed remains the same, while the price of live pigs is too cheap. Ms. Hang explained: "We have invested all the assets we have saved over the years in raising pigs, but now the price of live pigs has decreased, each batch of pigs my family loses over 40 million VND. We don't know when we will get our capital back."

The pigs of Ms. Hang's family in Hamlet 15B Nghi Kieu (Nghi Loc) are ready to be sold, but there are no buyers. Photo: Thu Hien

Disadvantages of pig farming

According to Mr. Tran Quoc Cuong, Head of the Nghi Loc District Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Station, the main reason for the rapid drop in pig prices is that supply exceeds demand. On the other hand, local pig consumption is too dependent on the Chinese market, so when China reduces imports, domestic pig sales immediately fall. According to Mr. Tran Quoc Trung, Chairman of the Hung Nguyen Farm Association, pig farmers are "swimming" on their own and have not received timely and active support from local authorities during difficult times.

A paradox is that the price of live pigs has fallen dramatically, but the cost of industrial feed is still high, so after selling, most farm owners are losing money, not having enough capital to restore the herd, and only small-scale farmers are still maintaining. And although the price of live pigs has fallen sharply, the price of pork at wholesale markets in the area remains high. Specifically, shoulder meat, rump meat, belly meat, and ribs range from 75,000 to 80,000 VND/kg, while lean meat costs from 90,000 to 100,000 VND/kg.

Supply exceeding demand is the main reason why pigs across the country are in such a dire situation today. A livestock industry that chases after quantity and weight gain while output is not taken into account, not to mention the massive meat imports in recent times, is the "half-crying, half-laughing" situation of the livestock industry across the country. Collected information shows that: Since the beginning of the year, the whole country has imported 7,800 tons of pork of all kinds, worth more than 9.4 million USD, an increase of nearly 16% in volume and 21% in value compared to the same period. The average price of imported meat is only 27,000 VND/kg.

In the livestock chain, Vietnamese people are passive in both the feed and the market and breeding stages. In other words, they are raising animals in a robotic, "processing" or "bare-handed" manner. Farmers import foreign feed, foreign breeds, borrow money from banks to invest in barns, buy feed and then fatten their pigs, then export them illegally to China, completely dependent on this market. Pigs are fattened with imported growth-promoting feed from Australia, China, Thailand, the US..., while thousands of hectares of corn, rice and potatoes in Vietnam are being consumed raw at cheap prices. Dozens of Vietnamese feed processing factories are buying corn and noodles from other countries to process pig feed while Vietnamese corn and potatoes are unsold. That is the inadequacy right in the animal feed stage.

PV Group

(To be continued)