Why has the value of the specialty Mong chicken not been fully exploited?

Mong chicken, Tien Son commune (Duy Tien town) is a rare local specialty. This breed of chicken has been genetically preserved, has a geographical indication and has many trade promotion programs to access the market. However, due to certain reasons, up to now, Mong Tien Son chicken has not been able to promote its value.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tham's Mong chicken farm, which was previously selected to preserve rare indigenous breed genes, still maintains a total herd of 8,000 chickens. Of which, the parent chickens are about 2,000, the rest are meat chickens. Every month, Mr. Tham sells an average of more than 1,000 commercial Mong chickens to the market.

Although the scale of raising Mong chickens in Mr. Tham's farm is quite large, the product is still unstable in both consumption and price. Currently, Mr. Tham is selling Mong chicken meat with a 6-month breeding period at 120,000 VND/kg, chickens from 8 months to 1 year old at 150,000 VND/kg, chickens over 1 year old - 2 years old at 180 - 200,000 VND/kg. With such selling prices, each kg of Mong chicken of all kinds only brings a profit of 10 - 20,000 VND/kg. It is known that during the breeding process, Mr. Tham has been very active in finding consumption markets, including bringing them to chains of stores, restaurants, and businesses specializing in processing chicken products in many provinces and cities, especially Hanoi. Along with that, he invested in providing customers with demand for specialty Mong chickens that have been slaughtered, vacuum-packed, and have full labels... Mr. Tham confided: Mong chickens must be raised for a long time to produce good quality meat and slow weight gain. Breeders are very susceptible to losses due to unstable market prices...

Why the specialty chicken Mong has not been able to promote its value — **Mr. Nguyen Van Tham checks the Mong parent chickens on the farm.** Photo: Thanh Nam

Along with Mr. Tham, most households in Tien Phong area, Tien Son commune still maintain raising the local specialty Mong chicken. However, most people mainly raise them in small quantities, each household has about 30 - 100 chickens, some households raise more than 100 chickens, mainly taking advantage of the space in their home gardens. People raising Mong chickens only focus on supplying the main demand for consumption during the Lunar New Year. Farmers wait for the warm spring to breed and raise them until Tet to reach 8 - 10 months old, enough time for the chickens to be of good quality. The total local Mong chicken herd is usually maintained at about 30 thousand chickens.

Mr. Le Duc Thuy, Chairman of the Association of Production and Consumption of Mong Tien Phong Chicken, said: Mong chicken is still the main animal raised by local people. However, the number of flocks is only concentrated at certain times and has not clearly shown the direction of commodity production. Most people still raise chickens to serve their family's needs during holidays and Tet, and only sell a part of the surplus chicken outside...

In fact, raising specialty Mong chickens requires a lot of time and cost. To raise commercial Mong chickens, it takes at least 6 months or more, and good quality chickens take 8 months - 1 year or longer. This raising time is 1.5 to more than 2 times longer than other types of chickens. Especially later on (usually after 6 months), the chickens gain weight very slowly, this stage mainly helps improve quality, such as: firm, sweet, crispy meat... When the chickens reach the weight, the daily food ration also increases, focusing mainly on rice. At the current high rice price stage, the cost of raising Mong chickens increases. However, the selling price of Mong chickens is not much different from that of normal chickens, only about 10 - 20 thousand VND/kg (mass commercial type). If Mong chickens are sold at the market, the price will be the same as other types of chickens, such as: Cross-fighting, cross-Dong Tao... Most Mong chicken farmers in the Tien Phong area still consume Mong chickens in the free market. Even bringing Mong chicken products to restaurants is risky. There have been cases where restaurants imported and hung signs selling specialty Mong chicken, but after a while, they mixed in other types of chicken to sell because they had a cheaper import price. According to Mr. Tham, some restaurants only imported Mong chicken products at first to attract customers, then switched to other types of chicken that consumers could easily get confused about.

It must be affirmed that the quality of Mong chicken meat is not inferior, and is somewhat tastier than many other famous chickens on the market. Therefore, along with the efforts of the people, all levels and sectors continue to provide the necessary support for Mong chicken products to be effective.

Manh Hung

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