Pig price drops, cattle-feed soars, breeders run into difficulty

* Cattle-feed is skyrocketing

    A great number of pig breeders are shocked of the steep drop in the slaughter pig price. Only in one month (from early June to early July), the slaughter pig price “jumped” from VND47,000/kg to VND36,000/kg. Doan Manh Viet, a pig breeder in Long Thanh, who has nearly 100 swine and 10 sows, said, while the pig price was VND36,000/kg, cattle-feed had seen the price increase of nearly VND300,000 per sack of 25 kg so the breeders did not earn any profit. Those who had done the job for many years and did have to buy breeding pigs break even. Those who had just started the job and had to buy breeding pigs would undoubtedly make loss, Viet added.

    However, while slaughter pig price sharply decreases, breeding pigs has a quite high price. Their price is offered by the household breeders at VND1.6 million per pair (each of them weighs some 15 kgs) but it is still lower than that offered by pig farms at VND1.5 million per pig of 20 kgs.

    According to owners of pig farms, the reason why slaughter pigs have a sharp drop in price is they have been sold to the market in such a great number that the “supply-demand” loses its balance.

    The epidemic diseases beak out in many places so the breeders get into panic and in turn sell their pigs in great number. Coming along is the pressure of the cattle-feed price hike so the pig farm owners decide to sold their pigs earlier to reduce costs and avoid making loss, which leads to a dramatic increase in the number of pigs sold to the market, explained Nguyen Tri Cong, one of the biggest farm owners in the province.

* Will the cattle-feed price continue rising?

     In this year only, consumers have witnessed five waves of slaughter pig price increases, from VND40 thousand per kg to VND47 thousand per kg while pig mash has seen its price increase as much as ninefold. More seriously, from early June to early July, while the pig price steeply drops, the mash price continues soaring with as many as 4 waves only in one month. “Companies inform a new price every several days. The pig breeders coming here to buy pig mash cannot help complaining. I am a seller but I also feel anxious,” said Mai Thi Lien, an owner of a mash dealer in Gia Kiem (Thong Nhat Commune).

    Pham Duc Binh,Vice Chairman of Vietnam Cattle-feed Association explained that input material price was on the increase, especially the material requiring imported like fish meal or various types of vitamin, which had sent the cattle-feed price to skyrocket. In addition to this reason, there are quite many other reasons leading to the increasingly expensive cattle-feed. “The exchange rate is high and unstable. The imported businesses find it difficult to take out loans and cannot buy foreign currencies for payment. The interest rate is high. The goods that are in the list of cattle feed allowed to be imported are stopped at the border gate for inspection,” added Binh.

    The cattle-feed might continue soaring in the coming time because the input materials in the country could not meet the demands and also had to rely on the price and the supply of imported ones, commented Binh. It is undoubted that the breeders are fraught with difficulties. They need to work out expenses carefully in order to reduce costs if they want to survive.

    Reported by Dongnai Newspaper, Translated by T.V