Falling prices, tens of thousands of hungry crocodiles 'waiting to die'

Prices have dropped dramatically, traders are not buying, tens of thousands of crocodiles are starved by farm owners because the more they raise them, the more they lose.

Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai... are considered the capital of crocodile farming in our country. However, the price of commercial crocodiles is currently falling dramatically to over 30,000 VND/kg, causing the remaining number of crocodiles to reach hundreds of thousands.

Price drop miserably

Visiting Thuy Loi crocodile farm in Phu Ngoc commune, Dinh Quan district (Dong Nai province), farm owner Tuan told reporters: "Traders buy at 50,000 VND/kg, the price has never been as low as this year, it's unbelievable. Last year, the price was up to 200,000 VND/kg, no matter how much was sold, the lowest was more than 120,000 VND/kg. Currently, the price has dropped sharply so I don't dare to sell, if the situation continues, I will definitely suffer heavy losses."

Crocodile prices have fallen dramatically, so farmers have had to keep and starve the crocodiles.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Bang, who has more than 10 years of experience raising crocodiles in Hoc Mon district (HCMC), shared that his farm currently has more than 200 crocodiles ready to be sold, but traders do not buy them. A few months ago, customers came to the farm to negotiate a purchase price of 100,000 VND/kg, then it dropped to 80,000 VND/kg, then 50,000 VND/kg.

At this time, Mr. Bang's crocodile farm should have sold out the large batch, preparing for the baby crocodiles.

However, due to the low selling price, all crocodiles that are old enough to be sold are kept in the cage. “The longer we keep them, the more money we spend on food, and they don’t grow much and we lose a lot if we sell them, so we’d rather reduce their food intake and wait for the price to go up.

In the future, if the price of crocodiles does not improve, I will accept selling at a loss because I cannot cover the cost of food, cleaning the barn... Roughly, if I sell 100 crocodiles at 70,000 VND/kg, I will lose 40 million VND. Currently, the price has dropped to less than 50,000 VND/kg, so I may have to sell at a loss to change the business model,...

At this rate, it won't be long before farmers like us go bankrupt," Mr. Bang worries.

Crocodile farming facilities and businesses admit that this is the most difficult period for the industry.

Crocodile farming facilities and businesses admit that this is the most difficult period for the industry, due to its heavy dependence on the outside market.

Traders take advantage of the difficult situation of small-scale farming households with small numbers, unable to find outlets to force down prices, causing insecurity for farmers. At the current stage, Vietnamese crocodile farming households have completely lost the initiative, the purchase price of crocodiles depends on traders.

Old lesson

Accordingly, in previous years, traders bought commercial crocodiles for about 230,000 VND/kg and bought all kinds of crocodiles, at which time farmers had very high profits. Therefore, in just a short time, the area and model of crocodile farming "expanded" massively. When there was a shortage, traders pushed the price up to nearly 300,000 VND/kg.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Chairman of the Southeast Crocodile Cooperative, said: "The crocodile farming model has been booming since last year, we were worried and warned of the bad situation happening. Partly because people were caught up in the movement, in just a short time, the number of crocodiles increased dramatically. Dong Nai province alone has nearly 300 crocodile farms with more than 100,000 crocodiles, Ca Mau has nearly 300,000 crocodiles, Ho Chi Minh City and Bac Lieu each have about 200,000 crocodiles.

However, since the beginning of the year, due to losses, the number of crocodiles raised has only increased by more than 10,000 individuals. Most of the crocodiles can now be sold, but farmers continue to patiently wait for prices to increase. If they sell, they will lose money, stagnate capital, and easily fall deeper into debt.

Faced with low prices and unstable output, hundreds of thousands of crocodiles in the Southeast region are stuck, causing farmers to suffer.

"Similar to the recent case of "rescuing" bananas and pigs, we have seen the old lesson repeated. Traders pushed up prices when people rushed to grow them, then immediately pushed prices down. At this time, farmers were confused and tried to sell quickly, so the price was forced down even more, the bigger the crocodiles, the lower the price," Mr. Thanh said.

Crocodiles are easy to raise, have few diseases, and one worker can take care of nearly 400 individuals. Therefore, the price of crocodiles has been created by traders as a virtual fever, pushing the price to an unprecedented high. Seeing the immediate profit, crocodile farms in the area increased the quantity raised. Suddenly, at the end of last year, the price of crocodiles was more than 40,000 VND/kg and now the price is only around 60,000 VND/kg.

Also according to Mr. Thanh, previously, Ho Chi Minh City established Saigon Crocodile Village to attract farmers to participate in contracts, committing to purchasing products at a floor price of 120,000 VND/kg, in order to stabilize sustainable output for farmers.

In addition, the craft village also provides vocational training for rural youth on how to process commercial crocodiles instead of selling them raw. However, due to the pursuit of profit, when the price of crocodiles was pushed up by traders, some farmers signed contracts with the Saigon crocodile village to break the contract to sell crocodiles outside. At that time, the craft village faced many difficulties due to high prices and lack of raw materials for processing.

Faced with the plight of the crocodile farming industry, Mr. Thanh proposed the establishment of the Vietnam Crocodile Association. Thereby, to have a common voice and protect the crocodile farming industry from unfair competition, creating loopholes for foreign traders to squeeze prices.

The association helps authorities play a good role in guiding the organization of livestock farming, planning the development of Vietnamese crocodile farming associated with management work, instead of letting farmers develop livestock farming spontaneously as is currently the case.

According to VNN