The raising of dairy cattle in the last few years has played animportant role in livestock production, and helped raise farmers'incomes, but the industry needs improvements to develop in a sustainablemanner.
Speaking at an industry forum in HCMCity 's Cu Chi district last week, Dr Doan Duc Vu from the Instituteof Agricultural Science for Southern Vietnam said during the last 10years, the dairy cattle population rapidly increased, from 41,000 headsin 2001 to 128,538 heads last year.
Total domesticmilk production in the period achieved an annual growth rate of morethan 30 percent to over 306,000 tonnes in 2010 from 64,000 tonnes in2001.
But domestic consumption and demand haveincreased even faster. Milk output this year has reached an estimated329,000 tonnes, meeting only 22 percent of demand.
As a result, the country imports a large amount of milk and dairy products each year.
As living standards increase, consumers have stronger demand for milkand dairy products, offering a good opportunity for businesses andfarmers to expand their breeding.
Despite ampleopportunities, the dairy-cow breeding industry is facing challenges,including inexperienced farmers, a lack of dairy-cow breeds,insufficient land for cattle-raising and forage production, andineffective animal-health services, according to Vu.
With small scale breeding, farmers say it is difficult to apply moderntechnology, which results in lower productivity and quality as well ashigh production costs.
In addition, the country hasto import most ingredients used in producing cattle feed, pushing upproduction costs and making the sector less competitive.
The dairy production sector is still young and has far less experiencethan other agricultural sectors, Vu said, noting that farmers stillbreed mainly Holstein-Friesian crossbreeds with low productivity.
Ho Mong Hai, an expert from the Vietnam Animal Husbandry Department,said the Government, under its Dairy Development Plan until 2020, set atarget to meet 38 percent of domestic milk consumption by 2020.
To achieve these goals, Hai said the sector must adopt measures toraise productivity and reduce production costs, including dispensingwith cows with low reproduction capacity or productivity, continuing toimport quality dairy-cow gene sources and encouraging development oflarge-scale breeding farms.
He also called on thesector to develop measures to reduce industrial feed expenses byexpanding cultivation of soybean and maize and intensive production ofgrass.
Training farmers in the basic principles ofdairy cattle raising and disease prevention, as well as health hygiene,milk preservation and some common disease treatments, was also veryimportant, he said.
In Vietnam , dairy cows aremainly raised in the southeastern region, with dairy cow herds in HCMCity accounting for 62 percent of the country's total.
Delegates at the forum also discussed issues related to dairy cowbreeds, breeding techniques, disease-prevention measures, nurturingtechniques and waste-treatment methods, as well as the latest technologyin the processing, preservation and supply of cattle feed.
The forum, co-organised by the National Agricultural Extension Centreand the HCM City Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, wasattended by more than 400 delegates, including scientists, provincialagricultural officials, businesses, and breeders of milch cows from 10provinces and cities in the south./.