Traders buy pigs for 2 million and sell them for 6 million VND/pig.

Although the price of pigs sold at the farm is falling sharply, the price of pork sold at the market has not decreased at all, the reason is because it goes through many intermediaries.

Too many middlemen

The price of live pigs for slaughter is falling to a record low of only 27,000 - 28,000 VND/kg. In some northern provinces, the price of live pigs has even dropped to 22,000 - 25,000 VND/kg.

At this price, each pig sold, the farmer loses from 1.8 to 2 million VND. The more pigs are raised, the bigger the loss, sometimes up to a billion VND.

The sad reality is that the price of live pigs has hit rock bottom, the lowest in the past 30 years, but the price of pork sold at the market remains sky-high and shows no signs of decreasing.

Specifically, at markets in Hanoi, pork butt, shoulder, belly, and trotters are all priced at 80,000 VND/kg, loin ranges from 90,000-95,000 VND/kg, ribs are 100,000 VND/kg, trotters are 70,000 VND/kg,...

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Dung, a pork trader at Dai Tu market (Hoang Mai, Hanoi), the current price at the pig farm is 2.5 million VND/100 kg pig. After slaughter, the meat is removed from the jaw (all internal organs are sold separately) and is about 75 kg.

If cut, the butt, shoulder, belly, and leg meat can be sold for 80,000 VND/kg, the loin 90,000 VND/kg, the ribs 100,000 VND/kg, the bones 55,000 VND/kg, the head bones 40,000 VND/kg, the ear and cheek meat 75,000 VND/kg, and the pig's feet 70,000 VND/kg.

If the price is 80,000 VND/kg, a pig in the market can be sold for about 6 million VND/kg.

The price of live pigs for sale is falling to a record low of only 27,000 - 28,000 VND/kg. In some northern provinces, the price of live pigs has even dropped to 22,000 - 25,000 VND/kg. At this price, farmers lose 1.8 - 2 million VND for each pig sold.

If you deduct the purchase price at the farm, the trader makes a profit of 3.5 million VND. However, even if you buy pigs at a farm in the suburbs of Hanoi, only 20-30 km away, you still have to go through at least 3 intermediaries.

"If the middlemen refuse to reduce prices, then the small traders in the market cannot reduce prices either," said Ms. Dung.

Acknowledging the above situation, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Duong - Deputy Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), said that intermediaries (traders) are present in every country, farmers cannot bring their products to the market to sell. Therefore, if they want to sell, they must go through intermediaries.

However, in the distribution chain, the middlemen are taking too much. As a result, farmers have to sell pigs at low prices, while consumers have to buy pigs at high prices.

Therefore, the management agency needs to strengthen the supervision of traders, slaughterhouses as well as supermarkets to see if the input is high or not while the output is so high. The Ministry of Industry and Trade needs to clarify this issue.

"In the long term, it is necessary to restructure the livestock industry to form a chain to eliminate the situation where intermediaries benefit too much from farmers," he said.

Should learn Thai

Speaking to the press, Mr. Vu Vinh Phu - Former Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Trade, said that our distribution process has completely failed. The failure is because a pig from the barn to the supermarket or market has to go through 3-4 intermediaries, in which the retail stage accounts for 20-30% of the profit.

Pig farmers across the country are struggling because pork prices have fallen sharply for half a year with no signs of recovery.

According to Mr. Phu, Vietnam needs to learn from Thailand in the way of organizing the distribution stage and the way of dividing profits. They have a very clear law that the intermediary stage can only take 30%, and cannot exceed this number, regardless of whether the distribution process goes through one or more intermediaries.

Farmers receive 70%, ensuring they have profits to reinvest in production.

However, in Vietnam, the situation is completely opposite. Even though farmers sell at low prices and suffer losses, the intermediaries still make a lot of money. In particular, the cheaper the price, the higher the intermediaries' profits. Therefore, Vietnamese farmers are the most disadvantaged and disadvantaged, while consumers have to buy goods at expensive prices.

“A pig has to go through many intermediaries and incur 51 fees, so the high distribution price is inevitable. Moreover, the current retail stage takes too many discounts, up to 20-30%. Grease fees, coding fees... push the price of pork up to more than 100,000 VND/kg. This needs to be reduced,” said Mr. Phu.

According to this expert, this situation has not only been going on for a few years but for decades without being resolved. As a result, consumers have to eat dirty food and pay high prices. Therefore, it is necessary to form a chain that goes straight from production to retail.

Specifically, Mr. Phu said that the technical trade organizer needs to stand up and there needs to be a commercial conductor to manage this issue. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Industry and Trade must be responsible for linking farms with supermarkets, otherwise traders and wholesalers will squeeze prices.

Mr. Phu also frankly raised the issue of why the trading corporations boasting of having hundreds of networks and hundreds of billions of dong in capital do not go and buy for the people. Currently, the supermarket's purchasing staff are "sitting under the table, sitting in the air-conditioned room" waiting for distributors to bring meat instead of proactively going and buying.

“Our way of doing things is very bureaucratic and administrative. If we do that, producers will die and consumers will suffer. Currently, many pig farms in Dong Nai and Ha Nam are dying and many farms are abandoned,” Mr. Phu emphasized.

According to Son Ca/baodatviet