Despite being an agricultural country, Vietnam is still dependent on imports worth billions of USD each year in animal feed and other products to support the husbandry industry, and even continues to import meat.
A report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)’s Animal Husbandry Department showed that Vietnam spent USD1.45 million on importing over 1,600 pigs for breeding in the first seven months of this year. This figure was up 1.7 in value and 1.9 in volume compared to the same period last year.
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Even though the importation of chickens for breeding fell by about one percent in value over the same period, the industry in Vietnam still depends on these imports.
Apart from breeding animals, the country also spends billions of USD every year on importing animal feed. During the first seven months of the year, Vietnam imported USD2.42 billion in animal feed, nearly a 30% increase from the same period last year.
Animal feed imports, most of which come from China, also showed a slight increase.
Even though the country is trying to foster its own husbandry and meat production industry, nearly two tonnes of pork were imported so far this year, an increase of 9.4%. Chicken imports increased by 20.7%.
Hoang Thanh Van, director of the Animal Husbandry Department, explained that this trend is to be expected because Vietnam does not produce pure-bred animals for breeding.
“Vietnam has the capacity to produce over one tonne of maize per year while actual domestic demand is five to six tonnes.We are in the process of transforming some of the land currently used for rice cultivation to the production of maize,” Van said.
In order to increase the competitiveness of the animal husbandry industry, the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development has urged relevant authorities to be more innovative in their ways of thinking to increase productivity, raise production values and increase the incomes of farmers.
“In the future, we expect that the trend for the production chain will continue to rely on the international market," he added.