Facing difficulties from increased prices of materials

The household of Phan Thi Nguyet in Ngo 2 village, Dong Ky commune (Yen The district) provides the market with about 10,000 broiler chickens every year. According to Nguyet, 1,000 chickens consume an average of 310 bags of bran during their life circle. This type of bran is currently priced at 300,000 VND (13 USD) per bag, up 60,000 VND per bag compared to the end of last year. Thus, the cost of animal feed increased by 18.6 million VND (810 USD) per 1,000 chickens.

Phan Thi Nguyet in Ngo 2 village, Dong Ky commune (Yen The distict) takes care of her family's 25-day-old chickens.

According to the Yen The Division of Agriculture and Rural Development, this year the locality produces about 12 million fowls. In the past six months, poultry farmers in the district have spent an additional over 100 billion VND (4.35 million USD.

The increase in feed prices also makes pig farming difficult as the breed price is still high while the price of live hogs is on the decline, ranging from 59,000 to 61,000 VND per kg. The additional costs do not include those for vaccines, veterinary drugs, and chemicals for disease prevention and control, which have also seen price hikes in recent times.

Currently, farmers are also facing difficulties because the prices of fertilizers and pesticides have increased. 

Nguyen Thi Tra in Quy Thinh village, Quy Son commune (Luc Ngan district) said that her family has 10 hectares of fruit trees, including lychee, orange and grapefruit. Every year she has to use about 7 tonnes of inorganic fertilizers and 50 tonnes of organic fertilizers. With the current prices, it costs her family nearly 4 million VND (174 USD) more per ha on fertilizers.

Timely response

The sharp increase in the prices of feed and fertilizers is blamed for interrupted supply in countries due to the Covid-19 epidemic. Meanwhile, input materials for bran and fertilizer production in Vietnam are mostly imported.

The restriction of domestic trade and transportation due to the Covid-19 also significantly affected the prices of products. In the context of the complicated development of the pandemic, the demand decreases, so agricultural products in general are facing difficulties in sale, pushing the selling prices down. Bac Giang produces agricultural products and sells about 60 percent of them to other provinces, so increasing prices of agricultural production materials will push the whole industry to difficulty.

Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Duong Thanh Tung said that the agency has issued a specific plan to restore agricultural and rural development activities associated with Covid-19 prevention and control in the new situation.

People in Na Gu village, Cao Xa commune (Tan Yen district) cares for commercial pigs.

The department will coordinate with districts and city to focus on implementing programmes, projects, mechanisms and policies to support production in order to ensure progress, quality and efficiency. It will also advise the provincial Party Committee, People's Council and People's Committee to develop mechanisms and policies on assisting production linkage chains; and support high-tech and organic production and disease-free breeding models.

At the same time, it will propose the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Finance inspect the increase in prices of feed and fertilizers. At first, farmers should raise livestock on a reasonable scale, not raising new herds massively since the Covid-19 epidemic is still complicated and the hot weather prolongs. They need to use feed economically and efficiently to reduce production costs.

For cultivation, localities need to encourage people to increase the use of on-the-spot organic fertilizers, because the amount of animal manure here is very large, thereby both reducing the use of inorganic fertilizers and costs for improving the land for sustainable cultivation.

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