With traders in China willing to buy Vietnamese-raised pigs of any quality at high prices, farmers are rushing to expand their herds, not concerned with what could happen if the Chinese stop buying.
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| A man hoses the pigs on a truck heading for China in this photo taken in Quang Ninh province. |
With traders in China willing to buy Vietnamese-raised pigs of any quality at high prices, farmers are rushing to expand their herds, not concerned with what could happen if the Chinese stop buying.
The price of live pigs in Vietnam has skyrocketed in the last two months thanks to the increasing demand from China, according to industry insiders.
Local traders, who source pigs from farms in southern Vietnam and sell them to Chinese buyers over the northern borders, said the Chinese always place huge orders, accepting both good and even poor quality stock.
“While it used to be difficult to sell big pigs weighing above 90kg, those with higher weights are now easier to sell,” a pig farmer in the northern province of Ha Nam said. “The Chinese have even been accepting pigs of more than 120kg.”
Pigs sourced from southern provinces like Dong Nai and Ben Tre are loaded onto trucks and transported to the northern borders. The animals will have to travel nearly 2,000km in two days to reach their final destination, according to drivers.
At peak times, there are as many as 3,000 live pigs sent to China from Dong Nai alone on a daily basis, according to some local traders.
At the border gate in the northern province of Quang Ninh, some 20 trucks wait to clear customs to enter China every day.
“In only five days, 1,750 metric tons of live pigs, worth US$2.6 million, have been brought through Hoang Mo,” said Tran Xuan Hung, deputy head of the customs agency at the border gate.
With pigs selling like hot cakes, local farmers have rushed to enlarge farms and expand herds.
Breeders are reaping profits of up to VND1.5 million (US$67) per pig, which Dinh Van Tinh, a farmer in Thong Nhat District, Dong Nai, said was “too lucrative to resist.”
Tinh has recently added 300 pigs to his existing herd of 800 animals to embrace the golden opportunity. Similarly, Nguyen Thi Thanh, another Dong Nai pig breeder, has spent more than VND530 million ($23,661) on building a new farm and buying 100 pig breeds.
High risks
According to the Animal Husbandry Department, at least 500 metric tons of live pigs are transported across the border to China on a daily basis.
“This is both good and bad news,” department head Hoang Thanh Van said.
“It is good to see farmers earning good margins from their pigs, but such cross-border trade is risky as the Chinese buyers may stop buying at any time.”
In fact, it is not uncommon for Chinese traders to source Vietnamese products, from rice, fruit and seafood, in large quantities before stopping trade abruptly.
The decision to halt purchase is usually made when trucks carrying the produce are already waiting at the gates to enter China. The products eventually must be destroyed, with farmers were left in debt.
“It will be even more disastrous in the case of pigs, as they are not as easily destroyed as watermelons,” Van said.
The pigs will then have to undergo complicated and costly procedures for destruction, and “people may try to keep the dead pigs to slaughter for meat, which will raise food safety concerns,” he added.
Nguyen Kim Doan, deputy chairman of the Dong Nai animal husbandry association, said selling big pigs of more than 120kg also poses a threat.
“Those big pigs are not preferred by Vietnamese consumers, so farmers will not know what to do with them if the Chinese stop buying,” he explained.
