Prices of live pigs, having risen staggeringly over the past weeks, are forecast to rise to VND48,000 a kilo ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday before going down, said Nguyen Tri Cong, chairman of Dong Nai Livestock Association.
Prices of live pigs, having risen staggeringly over the past weeks, are forecast to rise to VND48,000 a kilo ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday before going down, said Nguyen Tri Cong, chairman of Dong Nai Livestock Association.
Cong’s prediction is based on the fact that the pig prices in Dong Nai and several southern provinces have continuously increased from VND38,000 to VND44,000-45,000 a kilo over the past two weeks.
Prices of live pigs had stayed low in the past nine months, causing losses among local farmers, Cong said. Therefore, the current VND44,000-45,000 a kilo has helped farmers break even or make small profits, he noted.
Cong predicted prices of live pigs would continue to rise in the near future. It is because many enterprises and residents now have begun stocking up on commodities for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, thus pushing up live pig prices.
According to Dong Nai Livestock Association, live pig prices are soaring but pig farmers have still found the prices too unattractive to raise new herds at this time. As the surging prices are due to the coming Tet, farmers can only decide to raise new herds if live pig prices remain high after the Tet holiday.
Nguyen Xuan Duong, deputy head of the Husbandry Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, ascribed the rising meat prices to the fact that relevant authorities have been able to control the import volume of poultry smuggled via the country’s borders in recent weeks. In addition, about 300-400 tons of live pigs are exported to China every day now and the volume may go up in the weeks nearing Tet.
Duong told the Daily that farmers might enjoy profits with the present prices after nearly one year suffering losses, which will encourage them to raise new herds. This will pull up prices of breeder pigs and breeder chickens but it is not a problem for farmers, he said.
Over a month ago, the Husbandry Department forecast prices of pigs and poultry to mark up at the year’s end. The department also estimated that the import volume of meat would hover around 10,000 tons a month, doubling the average import volume in the middle of 2012.
(Source: SGT)
