Livestock industry targets production growth of 6 percent

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnam’s livestock industry hopes to increase its average production growth rate in 2021 by 5-6 percent, according to the Department of Livestock Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The production of meat is expected to reach about 5.7 million tonnes, including 3.67 million tonnes of pork (up 6.1 percent), 1.5 million tonnes of poultry meat (up 5.8 percent) and 395,000 tonnes of beef (up 6 percent).

Meanwhile, eggs are expected to surge by 7.5 percent year-on-year to about 15.6 billion and milk production to hit 1.21 million tonnes, up 11.5 percent.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said another important task in 2021 for the livestock sector is to complete five strategic projects for the livestock industry in Vietnam under the Livestock Development Strategy Project in 2021-2030.

In addition, the industry needs to make full use of investment from the State budget, official development assistance and the private sector to carry out scientific research and development programmes for animal varieties.

Besides continuing to build safe livestock facilities, Tien said the livestock industry should attract investment to build high-tech livestock production models to optimise production and create competitive and high-quality livestock products for export.

According to the Department of Livestock Production, the total number of pigs last year was 26.17 million, up 5 percent year-on-year and the total number of cows was 5.87 million, up 4.2 percent. The industry produced about 14.5 billion eggs, up 9.5 percent.

The total output of animal feed was estimated at 20 million tonnes, up 5.6 percent year-on-year.

The General Department of Customs reported Vietnam imported 41,500 pig varieties worth 24.7 million USD, 301,000 pigs worth 84.6 million USD, 3.4 million poultry worth 17.9 million USD and 518,000 live buffalos for slaughtering, worth 556 million USD.

In 2020, the livestock industry gained a total export value of about 1.2 billion USD, including 28.5 million USD from fresh, chilled or frozen pork exports, 1.4 million USD from eggs, 71.3 million USD from natural honey, 25.1 million USD from fresh poultry meat and 28.1 million USD from processed meat products. It also exported animal feed and raw materials for animal food production worth 789 million USD.

Tien said last year, Vietnam successfully controlled African swine fever helping the pig production industry recover to about 3 million sows and 26 million pigs, reaching 85 percent of total volume before the African swine fever outbreak. In addition, the country boosted pork imports to make the pork price fall from the end of the third quarter.

Poultry production in 2020 grew by 10 percent to a record high of 500 million.

Large investment

Meanwhile, the Department of Livestock Production’s Deputy Director Nguyen Van Trong said there was a wave of large enterprises and corporations investing in livestock in 2020.

Many large poultry production companies like Minh Du, Cao Khanh and Dabaco expanded and upgraded breeding plants with an output of hundreds of millions of poultry each year.

Foreign-invested enterprises and other companies also made large-scale investments in the livestock sector, including Cargill, Japfa, Hoa Phat, Thaco, Mavin, Hung Nhon and Tan Long.

Most of the investment projects have a large production scale and use high technology and production chains, aiding the modernisation and sustainable development of the livestock industry, according to the department.

They included CP Vietnam Joint Stock Company’s 250-million USD poultry slaughter plant in Binh Phuoc province. The plant has a slaughtering output of 50 million chickens in the first phase and 100 million chickens in the second phase, making it the largest chicken production, slaughtering and processing plant in Southeast Asia.

Masan Group’s Masan MEATLife Joint Stock Company put the MEATDeli Saigon Meat Processing Complex into operation in Long An Province with a total capital of 1.8 trillion USD. The complex has a designed capacity of 1.4 million pigs per year to produce 155,000 tonnes of chilled meat products and products made from chilled meat./.