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Livestock industry urged to restructure
Viet Nam should restructure its livestock industry by applying lessons learnt from other countries, an expert has said.
"Global consumption of meat, milk and eggs is increasing, with greatest increase in South and Southeast Asian countries," Andrew Speedy, representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, told a conference on livestock industry outlook in HCM City last week.
As Viet Nam's population would rise from 86 million to 126 million by 2050, demand for pork and poultry was projected to rise from 2.3 million to 3.4 million tonnes and 415,000 to 610,000 tonnes respectively, Speedy said.
To meet the increasing demand, Viet Nam must enhance livestock production by encouraging investment in industrial poultry production, he said.
However, "Viet Nam's livestock industry started from a very small scale, which will constrain its development," he added, saying that endemic diseases and the high price of animal feed had also hampered the sector's development.
He urged the country to strengthen movement control and quarantine to reduce the risks of infection and spread of disease.
Upgrading basic hygiene practices, strengthening veterinary and financial services, improving feed supply and hatchery management were among things the sector should do, he said.
In addition, local authorities must adopt measures to balance the sector development with environment issues.
Speedy also spoke of a successful case of contract farming in Brazil – one of the world's largest livestock producers and exporters, in which farmers benefited from pre-financed inputs, technical assistance and guaranteed market.
Nguyen Anh Phong of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development said currently average milk consumption per capita in Viet Nam was only 9 kilo per year, much lower than that in other countries.
Along with increasing incomes, milk consumption was expected to rise strongly in the coming years, and this would encourage enterprises to invest more to develop local diary industries, especially diary breeds, since domestic diary farms only supply 28 per cent of the nation's milk, he said.
Milk prices are expected to increase by 12-17 per cent this year over last year,according to experts.
Prices of milk, especially imported, had continuously increased in the past years, Phong said, noting that retail milk prices in Viet Nam were the highest in the world.
With Vietnamese consumers believing price is linked to quality, milk producers and distributors always sought ways to hike prices, he added.
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