VietNamNet Bridge – Experts say the animal husbandry is trying to build a house with no foundation, because both the input materials and the sale of finished products have been relying on foreign companies.

The experts have warned that if Vietnamese farmers keep doing the outsourcing for foreign companies, Vietnam will become the market which consumes import meat and the products provided by foreign invested enterprises in Vietnam.

Vietnamese farmers prefer doing the outsourcing to minimize risks

Le Van Dinh, a farmer in Dong Nai province, who has been breeding fowl for the last 10 years, said that he now fees happiest than ever with his job.

Dinh is now doing the outsourcing for foreign companies, i.e. he breeds fowl for the companies. “They provide breeders, feed and medicine. They also send technique officers to show the way to breed fowl. What I have to do is to take care for the fowls and feed them,” he said. “I can get 5000 dong for every fowl.”

On average, after every 45 days of breeding fowls, he gets the pay of 25 million dong, the sum of money high enough to please him.

Of course, he would get more money if he breeds fowls and takes responsible for the outlet himself. However, Dinh still believes that it would be better to do the outsourcing, because no need for him to worry about the breeders, the input material price increases and about the sale.

“I am still owing 500 million dong to banks. I hope that the outsourcing will bring me enough money to pay bank debts,” Dinh said.

Like Dinh, many farmers in the southern region have given up the traditional model have shifted to breed poultry for foreign companies, including CP Vietnam, Japfa, or Emilvest.

Ho Tien Sinh, the owner of the Hoang Minh fowl farm in Binh Duong province, said that his farm has 30,000 fowl, 50 percent of which belong to CP Vietnam and Japfa.

Sinh said that the profit of 5000 dong per fowl he gets from foreign companies is not big, but he still accepts to breed fowls for the companies, because the feed price has been increasing too sharply, which has made farmers suffer. Meanwhile, farmers feel worried when they have to buy veterinary medicine on the market, because they fear they may buy counterfeit products.

“If you cannot take control over the feed and the medicine, the two most important factors in breeding, you will surely take loss,” he explained.

Vietnam may lose the livestock market

There have been no official statistics about the number of farms which are breeding livestock for foreign companies. Meanwhile, an expert has estimated that in the east of the southern region alone, nearly 70 percent of the farms are doing the outsourcing for foreign enterprises.

Experts have warned that the domestic livestock market may fall into the hands of foreign invested enterprises, and that foreign companies would control the prices of the input materials for the animal husbandry industry, including breeders, feed and veterinary medicine.

There are only 20 operational foreign invested enterprises, but they are holding 70 percent of the feed market. Meanwhile, the other 30 percent is shared by domestic producers and import products.

As for medicine products, domestic producers are holding 20 percent of the market share, while the other 80 percent have fallen into the hands of multi-national groups operating in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the breeding stock is being controlled by three foreign enterprises, Papfa, CP Vietnam and Emivest, which provide 6 million breeders to the market

“The domestic livestock industry has been heavily relying on foreign enterprises. If the current situation cannot be improved, I believe that the industry would disappear in the future,” said Le Van Me, Director of Phu Son Breeding Company.

Source: TBKTSG