Pork is a main staple in Vietnam, and many families raise pigs for their livelihood. Prior to 2017, pigs went for a good price and everyone wanted to raise pigs with a hope that their lives would improve, a Vietnam news agency reports. Unfortunately, this rush led to the biggest oversupply crisis in the history of this country’s livestock sector at the same time as a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
To stop the price falls and settle oversupply, a pork rescue campaign was organized, VietNamNet reports. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) organized meetings, sent dispatches to the Prime Minister to ask for help and called for consumers to prioritize buying pork to help farmers overcome difficulties.
The country also enforced temporary measures to restrict the development of the herds of pigs and stop imports. The measures helped and the pork price began recovering in late 2017.
But the crisis resulted in 900,000 farming households that had to stop farming. Many of them incurred big losses and went bankrupt. However, the biggest hit took place in February 2019 when African swine fever (ASF) struck and spread to 63 cities and provinces within six months. About 6 million pigs were culled which caused a loss of $511 million. In many areas, pig farming was nearly eliminated, despite state support, the article said.
During this time, a supply shortage occurred, pushing pork prices up. The prices escalated and hit unprecedented highs. Another rescue campaign was organized, but to force prices down this time. MARD requested to repopulate pigs and allowed imports of frozen pork and live pigs from Thailand for domestic slaughtering, VietNamNet reports.
The General Department of Customs reports that in 2020, Vietnam imported 141,140 tons of pork, an increase of 382% over 2019. The country also imported 450,000 pigs from Thailand.
In early 2021, the livestock industry said it could supply enough pork. However, the fourth outbreak of COVID-19 led to a disruption of the pork supply chain, resulting in a sharp fall in pork demand which caused the pork price to tumble once again.
MARD then estimated that the number of oversized, unsold pigs was in the millions.
Farmers still hoped that when the lockdowns were lifted, the pig prices would bounce back. But when Vietnam returned to its “new normal,” the pig prices continued to slide, VietNamNet reports.
In July 2022, prices rose for a short time before falling down again. High feed prices have exacerbated problems. Today, import tariffs for most input materials to make animal feed have been lowered to zero percent. Still experts say the crisis in the hog sector in Vietnam is not over.
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