VietNamNet Bridge – Despite being an agricultural economy, Vietnam cannot produce animal feed. It has to spend $4 billion a year on animal feed imports, a figure far higher than its earnings from rice exports.

A report of the General Department of Customs showed that in the first half of April alone, Vietnam imported 220,000 tons of corn, worth $55 million. From the start of the year, Vietnam had imported 1.8 million tons of corn by mid-April, for which it had to pay $470 million.

The import volume was triple that of the last year, while the import value was 2.34 times higher.

Soybean imports have also been sharply increasing. By mid-April, Vietnam had paid $300 million to import 520,000 tons of product, while the figures for the same period of the previous year were only $170 million and 280,000 tons.

The director of a big animal feed trade company said Vietnamese rushed to import corn and soybean in large quantities recently because of the price decreases in the world market, backed by the bountiful crop. Meanwhile, the domestic demand has been increasing since farmers have resumed their farming.

According to the Vietnam Animal Feed Association, of the 9 million tons of imported animal feed, 4 million are protein-rich feed (soybean, meat and fish powder), while 3 million are energy-rich products (wheat, corn, bran). Vietnam also spends hundreds of millions of dollars to import supplemental foods.

Also according to the association, Vietnam is seriously lacking in materials for producing animal feed. It lacks 30-40 percent of energy-rich feed, and 70-80 percent of protein-rich feed, while it imports 100 percent of the necessary minerals and additives.

“Vietnam takes pride in being the biggest rice exporter in the world. But ironically, the money it earns from rice exports is not high enough to buy animal feed,” the aforementioned director commented.

The director cited a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as saying that, in 2013, the country spent $4.5 billion to import 9.2 million tons of animal feed materials. Meanwhile, Vietnam exported 6.6 million tons of rice, earning $2.9 billion.

Le Ba Lich, Chair of the Animal Feed Association, said though Vietnam has a long coast line and numerous fish, it still cannot make fish powder.

In fact, a fish powder factory has just been set up in Ninh Binh Province, while some others have been making fish powder in Thanh Hoa and Da Nang. However, they can only churn out several thousands of tons of product every year, far from meeting the high demand of hundreds of thousands of tons.

“Why can’t Vietnam develop animal husbandry? Because it has been relying on imports. As the importers have to pay many kinds of under-the-table fees, they sell products at high prices. And farmers have to sell meat expensively because of their high production costs,” Lich said.

“Why can’t Vietnam develop an animal feed industry? Simply because there has been no strategy on animal feed industry development,” he said.

Eleven Vietnamese animal feed producers have shut down. There are only about 50 foreign-invested animal feed enterprises out of the approximately 200 operational enterprises, but they are responsible for 60 percent of the total output.

Tien Phong