The increasingly high number of meat imports in recent months hasput pressure on the domestic cattle industry, according to an articlepublished on the English language news portal VietNamNet Bridge.
Vietnamesebeef products are no longer found on the shelves at Lotte, Co-op Martand Big C, the big supermarket chains in Vietnam. There are only beefimports from Australia, which, though being more expensive than domesticproducts, are still selling faster.
According to the GeneralDepartment of Customs, in the first months of 2014, Vietnam imported1,431 pigs, or two times higher than that imported in the same period of2013. Of these, 66.4 percent were from the US, 31.9 percent from Canadaand 1.7 percent from Taiwan.
Vietnamese government agencies hadgranted licences to import 72,000 live cows by May 31, which accountedfor 13.2 percent of the total number of cows Australia had sold by thattime. It is highly possible that Vietnam would have to import 150,000cows from Australia this year to satisfy domestic demand.
Besideslive cows, Vietnam has also been importing live buffaloes to slaughterdomestically for sale and for frozen products. About 300 tonnes ofboneless meat and 14,532 tonnes of boned meat had been imported by theend of May.
Meanwhile, chicken imports have also been increasingrapidly, with 43,000 tonnes of chicken having arrived in Vietnam by theend of May. In 2013, Vietnam imported 78,000 tonnes of chicken.
A report showed that chicken imports account for 6-7 percent of the total amount of meat consumed domestically.
Importshave pushed domestic farmers against the wall. Dat Viet newspaperquoted the owner of a fowl farm in Binh Duong province as saying thatthe chicken price has fallen by 1,000 VND per kilo in recent days.
Thefarmers blamed the lower prices on oversupply after farmers had rushedto expand their farms’ scale, and on high quantities of recent imports.
Alocal newspaper quoted its source as reporting that in May and Junealone, nearly 10,000 tonnes of frozen chicken were marketed, while thedemand remained very weak due to the economic crisis.
Analystshave repeatedly given warnings about the difficulties the livestockindustry is facing. The meat imports, with amounts increasing steadilyin recent years, have made Vietnamese farmers suffer because theirproducts cannot compete with imports.
Tran Hoang Ngan, a renownedeconomist, noted that farmers now incurred double losses because theirproducts are unsalable, or sold at low prices, while they have to payhigh costs for imported feed.
Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Cao Duc Phat said Vietnam had to import 1.3 million tonnesof maize and 1 million tonnes of soybeans in 2012 to make animal feed.
Meanwhile, the total import turnover of feed and input materials reached 3 billion USD in 2013, up by 22.3 percent over 2012.
Accordingto the Vietnam Livestock Association, the domestic livestock industryincurred a major loss of 27 trillion VND in the last two years.
Phat admitted that animal husbandry is the weakest sector of Vietnam’s agriculture production.-VNA
Vietnamesebeef products are no longer found on the shelves at Lotte, Co-op Martand Big C, the big supermarket chains in Vietnam. There are only beefimports from Australia, which, though being more expensive than domesticproducts, are still selling faster.
According to the GeneralDepartment of Customs, in the first months of 2014, Vietnam imported1,431 pigs, or two times higher than that imported in the same period of2013. Of these, 66.4 percent were from the US, 31.9 percent from Canadaand 1.7 percent from Taiwan.
Vietnamese government agencies hadgranted licences to import 72,000 live cows by May 31, which accountedfor 13.2 percent of the total number of cows Australia had sold by thattime. It is highly possible that Vietnam would have to import 150,000cows from Australia this year to satisfy domestic demand.
Besideslive cows, Vietnam has also been importing live buffaloes to slaughterdomestically for sale and for frozen products. About 300 tonnes ofboneless meat and 14,532 tonnes of boned meat had been imported by theend of May.
Meanwhile, chicken imports have also been increasingrapidly, with 43,000 tonnes of chicken having arrived in Vietnam by theend of May. In 2013, Vietnam imported 78,000 tonnes of chicken.
A report showed that chicken imports account for 6-7 percent of the total amount of meat consumed domestically.
Importshave pushed domestic farmers against the wall. Dat Viet newspaperquoted the owner of a fowl farm in Binh Duong province as saying thatthe chicken price has fallen by 1,000 VND per kilo in recent days.
Thefarmers blamed the lower prices on oversupply after farmers had rushedto expand their farms’ scale, and on high quantities of recent imports.
Alocal newspaper quoted its source as reporting that in May and Junealone, nearly 10,000 tonnes of frozen chicken were marketed, while thedemand remained very weak due to the economic crisis.
Analystshave repeatedly given warnings about the difficulties the livestockindustry is facing. The meat imports, with amounts increasing steadilyin recent years, have made Vietnamese farmers suffer because theirproducts cannot compete with imports.
Tran Hoang Ngan, a renownedeconomist, noted that farmers now incurred double losses because theirproducts are unsalable, or sold at low prices, while they have to payhigh costs for imported feed.
Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Cao Duc Phat said Vietnam had to import 1.3 million tonnesof maize and 1 million tonnes of soybeans in 2012 to make animal feed.
Meanwhile, the total import turnover of feed and input materials reached 3 billion USD in 2013, up by 22.3 percent over 2012.
Accordingto the Vietnam Livestock Association, the domestic livestock industryincurred a major loss of 27 trillion VND in the last two years.
Phat admitted that animal husbandry is the weakest sector of Vietnam’s agriculture production.-VNA
