Household livestock production should be developed to reach a larger scale and higher professional level, participants agreed at a meeting on developing household livestock production on March 13 in Hanoi .

Addressing the meeting, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam stated that household livestock production would be the leading form of livestock production in the country in the upcoming years. The objective of the meeting was to discuss policies needed for supporting the sector in the 2014-2020 period.

Currently, there are some 12 million households in the country involved in livestock production.

Thus, a decision by the Prime Minister on such policies was of great importance as it encouraged the improvement of household livestock production by increasing productivity and lowering the prices of products, noted Nguyen Thanh Son, director of the Livestock Production Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The draft document by the ministry focuses on offering support to the farmers in areas related to breeding, veterinary, animal feed production, and livestock raising environment. The farmers will also be assisted in establishing chain products and commercial promotion. Training will also be provided to the farmers.

Those eligible for such support are households who raise livestock at a scale smaller than that of a farm according to criteria set by the ministry.

It is expected that once approved, the document will help tackle all the existing problems of the livestock production sector, including small scale production, low productivity, epidemics, and environmental pollution. The issue of low competitiveness will also be addressed.

According to the draft, farmers will receive a certain amount of money if they want to buy breeding livestock and can get their livestock vaccinated for free, which will protect them from certain kinds of epidemics. They will also receive financial support for building biogas tanks for animal waste treatment.

However, Son believes that the draft decision document covers too many supporting areas and might be difficult to execute.

"If we provide little support for everything, it is hard for the farmers to improve their livestock production," he emphasised.

"We should, instead, focus on supporting them in important areas, such as veterinary, artificial animal fertilization, and chain production. These are the very factors that can help to increase household livestock production."

Vo Sinh Huy, head of the Livestock Production officie of the central Thanh Hoa Province's Department for Agricultural and Rural Development agreed, stating that policy makers should focus on offering technological support to the farmers, rather than giving them money.-VNA