Expectations from chicken farmers
The chicken farm of Mr. Dang Van Minh, located in Gia Tan 2 Commune, Thong Nhat District is one of the farms in the province participating in the model of safe animal husbandry for export controlled by the Central Agricultural Extension Center.
Participating in the program, Mr. Minh almost had to change the whole traditional process of raising chicken to meet the requirements. "From breeders, food to veterinary medicine, everything must ensure traceability. As a rule, about 1 month before selling chicken, I have to stop using all kinds of veterinary medicine," Mr. Minh said. In addition, the facilities were also invested in to meet the requirements of hygiene and safety in animal husbandry. Besides the commercial chicken farm, Mr. Minh also has to build a chicken breeding farm.
Although the farming process is strictly controlled, chicken meets clean standards in accordance with the regulations, but the main output consumption of his farm still depends on traders. "Every two days there is a truck from traders coming to collect chickens. The selling prices depend on the market price. "Mr. Minh said.
Many chicken farming households in the province want to get involved in chicken export chain to benefit stable output and prices. In the photo: Chicken breeding farm of Mr. Nguyen Dinh Nam in Gia Tan 2, Thong Nhat district.
Being dependent on traders, although the process is clean, the price is not different from normal chicken products. Therefore, when he heard about an enterprise exporting chicken to Japan, Mr. Minh is willing to participate in the chicken supply chain. The reason is simple: "Participating in the chain, the price of chicken as well as the output will be agreed by the purchasing company for a long term. Regarding the process of raising animals for export, chicken products must meet strict standards but if there are specific models to refer to and technical support, we will able to do so," said Mr. Minh.
Similarly, Nguyen Dinh Nam, owner of 12,000 chickens in Thong Nhat district, said that if the output and price are stable, farmers will eagerly participate in the chain. "We just have a specific model of the farming process to refer to and the support from the business since we have experience in breeding for decades," said Nam said.
Vice Chairman of the Southeastern Livestock Association Nguyen Van Ngoc said that to meet the demand for processed chicken for export to Japan, Koyu & Unitek Company is in need of large chicken resources. Meanwhile, the number of farms meeting the criteria in the province is not high, so the opportunity for chicken farmers to participate in the chain is very open. However, to be involved in the chain, the farm must meet very strict requirements.
Remove difficulties in “disease free zone”
According to Mr. Ngoc, the biggest difficulty for chicken farms to get involved in the current chicken supply chain is the matter of disease prevention. "Recently Koyu & Unitek has organized inspections at my farm. The farm meets the standards, but due to the short distance to other small farms in the residence, they are concerned about the disease infection," Mr. Ngoc said.
Mr. Gabor Fluit, Asian CEO of De Heus Company Limited - which has a large scale of raw chicken supply in Vietnam and it is also the partner that Koyu & Unitek company is aiming for more raw chicken for export - said that the chicken farms involved in the company's feeding chain will be provided with food and seeders as well as technical support. However, the condition for participation is that farms must meet VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards and especially be located in a disease-free zone.
From the fact mentioned above, Mr. Ngoc suggested that Dong Nai government should have regulations on the distance for small farms to meet the requirements on safe areas. However, Deputy Director of the Department of Agricultural and Rural Development Phan Minh Bau said that it is difficult to implement the regulation on the distance among farms since most farmer are of small scale, if a farm were located 10km away from one another as required, Dong Nai would have ... no chicken farms.
To remove the difficulty for farmers, the agricultural sector is urgently expanding disease-free areas to meet the needs of export. Accordingly, Dong Nai has built disease-free zones certified at commune-level for Thong Nhat and Trang Bom districts. In addition, 10 communes around Koyu & Unitek's chicken farms have also been recognized as disease free, which means all the above areas are already qualified to raise chickens for export.
Dong Nai is also concentrating on building disease-free communes in Xuan Loc district and Long Khanh town. "The target set for the coming years is to build disease-free areas in the whole province to serve the export demand," Mr. Bau said.
Cost for chicken farming in the country has decreased sharply
Vice Chairman of the Southeastern Livestock Association Nguyen Van Ngoc said that the price of white chickens at the farm is currently at 24,000-25,000 VND / kg. Some years ago, at this price, the chicken farmers could get no profits, even suffer from loss, because, the cost for raising chickens was 25,000 to 26,000 VND / kg or 28,000 - VND 30,000 / kg. However, the average cost of raising white chickens in the Southeast is only 23,000 VND / kg, which is equivalent to Thailand - the leading country in chicken breeding industry in the region, and slightly higher than that in the US (which is 20,000 VND / kg). Thanks to the cost reduction, industrial chicken breeding industry has significantly increased its competitiveness compared to imported chickens. Meanwhile, the amount of chicken imported this year reduced sharply but the main reason beside the price factor, is the tight control by functional agencies.
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