Source: vietnamnet.vn
Struggling with losses, struggling with debt
Just sold a batch of pigs at a loss for 50,000 VND/kg, Mr. Hoang Van Chung in Phu Luong commune (Son Duong, Tuyen Quang) shared with reporters. VietNamNet, he was once an outstanding farmer in Vietnam with a model breed pigs on a scale of about 2,000 heads. However, for nearly 7 years, I have been constantly reeling from the pig, often feeling exhausted.
In 2017, facing a “price storm” due to the surplus crisis, live pigs sold at that time were only 16,000 VND/kg, the more he raised them, the more he suffered losses.
He and his wife fell into crisis, their debt to maintain the pig herd amounted to 3.2 billion VND. Even considering selling the pigs, the barn, and the house, I still don’t have enough money to pay the loan. The creditor (the bran seller) sends someone to guard the door. If they sell a pig, they will collect the money. He owed a lot of money, the dealer didn’t want to continue selling, so he had to run around and ask to buy from one store to another.
The “price storm” has passed and pig prices have increased again. However, before he could be happy about making a profit, the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic broke out, African swine fever attacked and spread throughout the country, and then the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, causing farmers like him to work even harder. knife.
In 2021, the livestock farm was “disturbed” by African swine fever. He lost a large amount of money and had to hang up the barn. In early 2022, Mr. Chung put all his capital into rebuilding the herd. But he could not have imagined that he would have to face a “double price storm” when animal feed prices skyrocketed and remained at the highest level in history, while live pig prices turned back down.
In the first months of this year, he sold live pigs for 43,000-47,000 VND/kg, suffering heavy losses. Some time later, the price of pigs rebounded, but before any batch of pigs could be sold, this product fell again.
“At this time, the selling price is below 50,000 VND/kg, and African swine fever has recurred. Farmers like me are always sitting on fire,” he shared.
Over the past 7 years, Mr. Chung’s livestock farm has shrunk from a herd of 2,000 pigs to less than half. He claims to be a large-scale livestock farmer, so he hasn’t had to quit his job yet, but his red books are all mortgaged for bank loans of up to several billion dong, and his future is unclear.
Mr. Chung is just one of millions of livestock households in our country who have struggled during the oversupply crisis, “price storms” and epidemics… in recent years. Farmers have suffered losses for a long time, leading to the loss of the ability to regenerate the herd and having to hang up the cages.
Recently, they are still insecure because cheap official imports are pouring in, and smuggled pigs and poultry are flooding into our country, threatening this industry.
In 10 years, 8 million livestock households left the “game”
Talking about the picture of the livestock industry, many experts say that it has never been as difficult as this period. Farmers fall into trouble when they have to endure losses and fight against epidemics.
Not long ago, Chairman of Dong Nai Livestock Association Nguyen Tri Cong said that farms and farming households more or less wanted to borrow capital from banks. But, it is almost impossible for them to access the bank. Many times, seeing the hungry livestock, they had to borrow money to buy bran. As the difficulties piled up, exhausted farmers had to hang up their barns.
To prove the above situation, Mr. Cong cited data from 10 years ago that our country had 10 million livestock households. 3 years ago there were 4 million households, now there are less than 2 million households. That is, 8 million livestock households had to leave the game.
He proposed that banks reduce loan interest rates for livestock farmers, and at the same time extend preferential credit packages and deploy them to key livestock farming areas, which is very urgent. Because the farm is operating, if the capital source is cut off, it could immediately go bankrupt.
Industry associations also proposed that authorities should thoroughly prevent smuggled livestock and poultry products, strictly control official imports, and reduce import taxes on animal feed ingredients (oil cake). soybean from 2% to 0%)… to protect the livelihoods of millions of livestock households in the country.
In the commodity chain, livestock farmers also hope that businesses will accompany and share less difficulties to go far together; We hope that the authorities will have policies to develop the livestock industry sustainably towards export, reducing pressure on the domestic market. Because the size of livestock herds in our country is currently among the top in the world.
When the price of animal feed ingredients increased, leaders of the agricultural industry once urged businesses not to rush to increase bran prices and to share difficulties with livestock farmers. Because this industry is an ecosystem, if businesses keep raising prices, farmers will suffer losses and limit farming. At that time, the enterprise’s production was affected, making it difficult for livestock farming to maintain its growth momentum.
In an open letter to businessmen and farmers on Vietnamese Businessmen’s Day October 13, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan emphasized that the market is sometimes vibrant, sometimes harsh. Creating a product is difficult, bringing that product to the market at an optimal price is even more difficult. Bringing a product to the market is difficult, but how to make the product stand firm in a market full of competition and constant change is even more difficult.
He mentioned the philosophy: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” In the industry value chain, there must be connection, harmonized profit distribution, sharing and reducing difficulties for each other to progress together and develop sustainably.
