Regarding the reason why poultry egg prices dropped sharply and “stayed at the bottom” for a long time, Mr. Manh said it was because the supply was too abundant, while demand in the market did not increase. Therefore, prices fall and are difficult to increase again. In particular, now in the summer – the low consumption season of the year – so selling prices are even more difficult to recover.
Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong (industrial chicken farmer in Long Thanh, Dong Nai) said that with the selling price of 25,000 VND per kg, an industrial chicken weighing 2.5kg when sold is losing about 12,000 VND. His chicken farm sells about 20,000 chickens/month. At this price, he will lose 240 million VND/month.
At the end of 2023 and early 2024, the loss will be even heavier when the chicken price is only 22,000-23,000 VND/kg.
“For the past few years, industrial chicken prices have been unstable. Most of them suffered heavy losses,” he said sadly. Therefore, the scale of the farm raised from nearly half a million industrial chickens, now only raises 60,000-80,000 chickens, because of many losses and running out of capital.
A recent report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shows that in the first quarter of 2024, the poultry herd in our country is estimated to increase by 2.1%; Meat output reached 593.5 thousand tons (up 5.1%); Poultry eggs reached about 5.03 billion eggs (up 4.8%).
Worth mentioning, in April, industrial chicken prices decreased quite sharply. Accordingly, industrial chicken purchased in Vinh Long was at 30,000 VND/kg, down 8,000 VND/kg compared to March. In Dong Nai, the price of industrial chicken fell to 25,800 VND/kg.
Our chicken eggs still maintain the same stable price as in March, at 28,000 VND/dozen eggs, while industrial chicken eggs decreased by 8.6%, to 16,000 VND/dozen eggs.
Mr. Nguyen Van Ngoc – Vice President of the Southeast Livestock Association admitted that industrial chicken farmers with white feathers and egg-laying chickens are having to sell products below production costs, suffering very heavy losses.
For example, white-feathered industrial chickens in Dong Nai are priced at 25,000 VND/kg. That is, for every 1kg of this type of chicken when sold, the farmer suffers a loss of 5,000 – 6,000 VND/kg.
According to Mr. Ngoc, the price of industrial chickens and poultry eggs “cannot rise” due to massive farming. Along with that, smuggled goods and imported goods flooded in in large quantities, leading to a situation of oversupply.
“Last year, pig prices were very low, poultry egg prices were high. Pig farmers switched to raising egg-laying chickens, leading to an increase in supply to the market, while consumer demand did not increase, so prices fell,” he pointed out.
As for chicken meat, smuggled goods and officially imported goods are large in quantity and cheap. Quadrant chicken thighs sell for just over 30,000 VND/kg, chicken wings, chicken feet, and waste chicken from Korea and Thailand flood in to compete with domestic chicken.
This time is entering the hot season, students are preparing for summer vacation… so consumption will decrease. Accordingly, poultry product prices will hardly increase in the near future, Mr. Ngoc said.
When talking about the situation of importing livestock products, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Duong – Chairman of the Vietnam Livestock Association – exclaimed: “In the past 2-3 years, the amount of goods imported into our country has increased tremendously.” Worth mentioning, the number of official imports is increasing, while smuggled goods are still coming in massively.
Mr. Duong emphasized that our country is importing a lot of waste livestock products from other countries for use as food. Typically, discarded laying hens (chickens at the end of their egg production cycle) that are not used for food in Thailand and Korea are exported to Vietnam for only 20,000 VND/chicken. Returning to the border, the price is about 40,000 VND/head and sold on the market for 50,000-60,000 VND/head.
Previously, livestock associations in our country also recommended that authorities prevent smuggling and strictly control imported goods to protect the domestic livestock industry as well as consumer health.
