Nguyen Cong Bac, director of Loc Phat BLLT Livestock JSC, told VietNamNet that live pig prices had reached VND70,000 per kilogram, allowing the company to make a profit of 1.8 million per pig. He sold about 1,000 pigs at that time.

Though prices have decreased to VND63,000-65,000 per kilogram, pig farm owners still can pocket q profit of 18-20 percent.

Bac said pig farming has been more profitable this year than last year. Farmers made a small profit in the first quarter or 2024, and made even more in the second quarter.

“The animal feed prices have decreased. All the farms of the company are raising pigs at the maximum capacity of 10,000-11,000 pigs for meat and 1,500 sows."

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the nation’s herd of pigs increased again in the second quarter because farming households have shifted to semi-industrial farming and cooperated with enterprises.

However, as African swine fever (ASF) is still occurring in many localities, farming is unstable, especially farming households.

Pig prices once soared and then decreased but they have stayed high. In July 2024, live pig prices hovered around VND62,000-66,000 per kilogram, which were high enough for farmers to pocket big money.

Hoa Phat Development of Livestock JSC sold 190,000 pigs, 80,000 merchandise breeders, and 1,000 gilts into the market in the first half of 2024. The sales of different pig species all grew well and the group’s revenue from animal husbandry increased by 34.4 percent over the same period last year.

BAF Vietnam reported that its revenue from livestock in the first six months of the year increased by 2.6 times to VND1.33 trillion, while post-tax profit reached VND154 billion, an increase of 12 times (VND12.8 billion).

According to BAF, pig prices recovered well in the second quarter after they bottomed out in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Dabaco Vietnam, a big player in the animal husbandry, saw net revenue increasing by 11.3 percent to VND6.437 trillion, and post-tax profit up by 36 times from VND6 billion to VND218 billion.

According to Dabaco’s Nguyen Nhu So, production costs were just VND48,000-51,000 per kilogram. The supply is decreasing more sharply than demand and it will take at least 18 months to settle the shortage.

MARD predicted that the pig supply would increase again, but live pig prices may still stay high and will only fall again in 2025.

Tam An