Vietnamese farmers are seeking help to reduce their dependence on foreign animal feed suppliers.
A pig farm
Luong Hong Doan, a farmer in Dong Nai Province, said the price of animal feed is constantly on the rise. "When the price of corn was VND6,900/kg, the price of feed was VND12,000/kg. However, even when the price of corn price dropped to VND5,500, the price of feed stayed the same," he said. Doan went on to say that when traders come choose pigs, household farms are being offered less.
Nguyen Van Giap, director of Insitute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development for the southern region, said animal feed suppliers were mostly FDI companies who are monopolising the market.
CP Vietnam Corporation, owned by the Thai Charoen Pokphand Corporation, currently holds 19.5% of market share. In second place is Cargill Vietnam, held by the American Cargill Corporation, which has over 8% market share.
A group of researchers said there were signs that large companies collude to fix prices.
"Even though material prices decrease, the feed prices don't move. This may cause a loss of thousands of billions of VND each year. We need to improve competition in the animal feed market," Giap said.
