Vietnam plans to increase the meat output of waterfowl by 8-10 percent a year in coming years, according to the Animal Husbandry Department.

The waterfowl sector, which breeds mostly ducks, also targets the volume of waterfowl bred by industrial farming to reach 50 percent by 2015 and 65 percent by 2020.

The country produces 280,000 tonnes of ducks and more than 2 billion duck eggs a year.

Nguyen Van Trong, deputy head of the department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), said the selection and development of breed stocks would be improved.

Central breeding centres will help local centres produce parental breed stocks, he said.

MARD now manages waterfowl purebred stocks and grandparent breed stocks.

Purebred stocks and grandparent breed stocks are bred at the Hanoi-based Dai Xuyen Duck Research Centre, the Binh Duong province-based Ben Cat Duck Centre and the Hai Duong province-based Cam Binh Duck Centre.

Parental breed stocks sourced from grandparent stocks to produce commercial stock are managed by provinces and cities.

However, up to 95 percent of households and local breeding centres that raise parental breed stocks do not register with local agencies, according to the municipal and provincial departments of Agriculture and Rural Development.

This has led to an imbalanced supply of commercial stocks among localities as local agriculture departments cannot manage the number of parental breed stocks and their quality.

The northern provinces, for instance, often face a shortage of commercial stocks, causing the smuggling of commercial stocks via the border into the northern provinces.

Nguyen Dang Vang, chairman of the Vietnam Animal Husbandry Association, said to improve the economic value of waterfowl production, localities should improve their local waterfowl breed stocks by hybridising methods to create good hybrid stocks.

To ensure outlets for products, the waterfowl sector should complete the production chain by selecting breed stocks and animal feed and reducing the death rate of waterfowl, he said.

"The association is consulting MARD to set up technical standards for animal husbandry farms," he said.

Vietnam has 80 million waterfowl, including ducks and geese and other species, and is the world's second largest waterfowl producer, after China, according to the department.

The country has various waterfowl strains that have high yield and quality. The Red River and Mekong deltas are the country's two major waterfowl producers.-VNA