The chicken breeding model of Ngo Thu Bon in Tan Ky village, Dong Tam commune, Yen The district.

Ngo Xuan Cuong in Tan Ky village, Dong Tam commune was not really satisfied with the unstable consumption despite he has recently sold 1,500 commodity chickens and earned a revenue of over 30 million VND (1,300 USD). His family and 11 other households with large-scale breeding models in the village have established the hill chicken breeding cooperative for more than one year. Accordingly, they support each other breeding knowledge and exchange the chicks, food and veterinary medicine.

Though most of the members master the technique and ensure a high-quality product, the output still greatly depends on the private tradesmen. Whenever the harvest season comes, the breeders must contact the buyers in and outside the province. Many buyers visit the farms but offer the equivalent selling prices.

According to Cuong, the problem is caused by the unfair behavior of the buyers who got advance contact and negotiation with each other to pay low price in order to get higher benefit.

Dong Tam commune is now home to some 200 breeding households with the scale of over 500 heads and a total herd of over 100,000 commodity chickens. Besides, there are 4 businesses and cooperatives established to buy process and consume the chickens.

A closed chicken breeding farm of Nguyen Xuan Gioi in Dong Kenh village, Dong Son commune, Yen The district brings high income.

Actually, they only procure small quantity. Thus, several members are not interested in linkage because the earned benefit is not much comparing to the long breeding period. These businesses and cooperatives mostly operate under household models that consume products upon customers’ orders only, leading to unstable output and belief.

Both breeders and the businesses are encountering numerous difficulties in chicken selling. According to Giap Quy Cuong, Director of Yen The Green Agriculture Cooperative, the livestock slaughtering daily occurs at the market. Though their products are stamped for origin traceability, packed and labeled in line with the regulation, just a few quantities have been sold because the customers are not familiar with using the processed chicken.

Even though the cooperatives have worked with the big supermarkets and commercial centers for several times and sufficiently satisfied their standard, they must withdraw because the payment term is made every few months which is too long for the newly established cooperative to run the business.

Defining chicken breeding as the major income source for the locals, the district People’s Committee has recently executed many solutions to develop the husbandry sector; invest billions of VND to support the business, cooperatives and breeders in building the collective trademark, package label as well as actively promote the trade and product.

However, the gained effectiveness is not equivalent to the local potential and advantages due to the limited capability of the investors to the district.

Thuy Phuong Poultry Research Center (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) supplies the chicks to breeders in Dong Son commune.

Than Minh Sam, Vice Chairman of the district People’s Committee affirmed that in the upcoming time the local authority will instruct to switch household-oriented economic model to concentrated farming model and duplicate the production under the value chain. Besides, newly established cooperative is further promoted while drawing the potential firms and cooperatives to invest in product processing and consuming so as to ensure a sustainable development for the trademark of Yen The hill chicken.

Recently, the @ Agriculture Encouragement Forum titled “Solution to improve the efficiency of hill chicken breeding under value chain” has been held at Yen The district by a joint collaboration between the National Agriculture Encouragement Center and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Many participating scientists and representatives considered the production under value chain as an inevitable trend and suggested standardizing the variety to create a distinguished appearance that help the customer be easy to choice.

Van Thuong