After a long period of sharp decline in pig prices in the market, causing farmers to suffer losses, pig prices have now increased significantly, and livestock farming has begun to make a profit. This is also an opportunity for farmers to restore production. However, input costs, especially animal feed prices, are still high, causing many difficulties for farmers, who are not interested in restocking their herds because they are worried about the risk of loss.
Previously, there was a time when Mr. Nguyen Khac Cuong's family in Dong Thanh village, Dong Quang commune (Dong Son) raised dozens of sows and more than 200 pigs. But now, his family has sold all of their sows and pigs and decided to "hang up the pigsty". According to Mr. Cuong: "If we continue to raise pigs at this time, we will risk losing capital because the price of live pigs is constantly fluctuating, diseases are constantly raging, and feed prices are increasing... When the price of live pigs dropped to 42,000 VND/kg, there was a batch that I lost more than 1 million VND/pig; for batches with slightly higher prices, after 4 months of raising, I only made a profit of about 200,000 VND/pig".
According to the survey, for medium-sized farms and small-scale households, investment in barns is low, so when they lose money, they can stop raising pigs and switch to other jobs or raise other animals. However, for large-scale farms with a lot of capital invested in building barns, farmers still have to try to hold on, "bear" losses and wait for prices to increase to partially offset investment costs. As a business operating in the livestock sector, facing fluctuations in market prices, Green Sarmth Livestock Joint Stock Company in Quang Duc commune (Quang Xuong) has faced many difficulties since the beginning of the year. When the price of live pigs dropped to only 45,000 - 46,000 VND/kg while the price of animal feed increased by 40% compared to the beginning of 2022, the business could not avoid worrying about production in the coming time, especially the herd restoration plan. Currently, with a scale of more than 2,000 sows, the enterprise has to release 3,500 - 4,000 breeding pigs to the market each month. However, currently, the cost of raising livestock is high, people are facing losses so they are "afraid" to re-herd; meaning that the enterprise cannot consume the breeding pigs and has to switch to raising pigs for meat. To maintain a stable livestock chain in a challenging context, the enterprise is focusing on disease prevention and biosecurity to protect the pig herd. Along with that, it is investing deeply in technical work, importing foreign breeds to improve breeding animals, increase productivity and product quality to reduce production costs. In addition, the enterprise also minimizes costs to cope with market difficulties. Continue to negotiate with animal feed suppliers to reduce input costs, ensuring production maintenance.
Livestock and poultry farmers in the province are restless. Because the problem of input and output costs is contradictory. That is, the price of bran - the main source of feed in livestock farming is at a high level, while the selling price of live pigs is unstable, the price has decreased sharply, when it increases, it is moderate, the efficiency of pig farming production in recent times has not shown signs of improvement. If this problem is not solved, the risk of small farms and households closing down and "hanging" their barns is inevitable.
Faced with fluctuations in feed prices and high input costs, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has advised farmers to be cautious in restocking, and to increase the transition to biosafety farming to produce high-quality pork products. At the same time, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine has directed the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine to effectively implement measures to prevent and control blue ear disease and African swine fever, and to monitor the supply and consumption of livestock products in the province to provide appropriate recommendations and guidance for farmers. Mr. Mai The Sang, Deputy Head of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, said: In response to fluctuations due to low pork prices, the Department has recommended that pig farms and households in the province continue to monitor the market to have appropriate farming plans, and should not massively reduce their herds, especially sows, which will disrupt the supply of breeding pigs. When the market recovers, there will not be enough breeding pigs to supplement and restock. Along with that, it is necessary to focus on disease prevention and control, fully vaccinating pigs against African swine fever and blue ear disease, so as not to suffer double losses due to low prices and disease outbreaks. In the long term, for stable pig farming development, households, farms and ranches need to promote and encourage the establishment of cooperatives and associations in livestock production and consumption, while at the same time encouraging and calling on businesses to invest and associate with people, in order to remove difficulties in consumption and processing, helping people develop livestock farming in a sustainable manner.
Article and photos: Minh Ha
Source
Comment (0)