Livestock businesses complain of difficulties due to massive imports of pigs and chickens.

Pigs, cows, chickens and processed products are imported en masse, putting livestock businesses under a lot of pressure due to unfair competition.

This concern was raised by four associations, including the Animal Husbandry Association, the Animal Feed Association, the Large Livestock Association and the Poultry Association, in a document sent to the Prime Minister . According to these associations, domestic businesses and breeders are facing many difficulties due to the increase in imported products.

According to statistics, last year over 3.5 billion USD worth of livestock products were imported into Vietnam, nearly 7 times more than exports (over 0.5 billion USD).

In addition to the official channel, the Vietnam Animal Husbandry Association said that there is a large amount of livestock and processed goods smuggled through unofficial channels. On average, 6,000-8,000 pigs are imported into Vietnam every day, not to mention a large amount of buffalo, cows, chickens...

Foreign goods encroaching on the domestic livestock market put domestic livestock products under unfair competitive pressure. Because most of the imported goods are by-products (rarely used as food), such as heads, necks, wings, hearts, kidneys, intestines, or products nearing their expiry date that are half the price of domestic products.

"In the long term, this will directly affect the issue of national food security," the associations said. They said that with the current import rate, in the next 3-5 years when import taxes are 0%, Vietnam will become a super-importer of livestock products.

A pig farm in Gia Lai. Photo: Thi Ha — A pig farm in Gia Lai . Photo: *Thi Ha*

Not to mention, massive imports also pose many risks, spreading dangerous diseases such as African swine fever and avian flu. Therefore, the associations recommend that Vietnam should soon have technical barriers and trade policies to limit official imports and take measures to prevent smuggled goods.

Authorities also need to increase quarantine measures, quality control and minimize the number of border gates allowed to import live animals into Vietnam.

For example, the US, China, Thailand, and Japan require goods to be processed through cold heat with complex technology and high costs. Or each country only allows an average of 3-5 border gates to import live animals, while Vietnam currently has 30 border gates.

"Without drastic control measures, Vietnam will find it difficult to control the disease situation in livestock farming," the associations recommended.

Duc Minh

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