Spending billions of dollars importing food for pigs and chickens
Only in the first eight months of this year, Vietnam imported 2.2 billion USD of animal feed and raw materials, not to mention other items imported partly to process animal feed such as wheat and soybeans.
Not only creating pressure on the prices of domestic agricultural products, but imported feed materials also pose many potential risks to the quality and safety of food for domestic products.
Export 4 million tons of rice, import 5 million tons of corn, low productivity, high price, domestic corn cannot compete with imported corn.
Information from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that in the first eight months of this year, Vietnam exported 3.96 million tons of rice of all kinds. At the same time, domestic enterprises imported 4.91 million tons of corn for animal feed processing, nearly 1 million tons more than rice exports. Previously, in 2016, Vietnam imported more than 8 million tons of corn, 1.5 times the total amount of corn produced in the country (5.3 million tons).
Not only corn, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, each year Vietnam spends up to 2.2 billion USD to import animal feed and raw materials, not to mention 1.31 million tons of soybeans and 3.37 million tons of wheat for food processing. products and feed, with meat and bone meal, vitamins...
Fierce competition
According to Mr. Pham Duc Binh, vice president of the Vietnam Feed Association, due to the slight decrease in world raw material prices, domestic feed processing enterprises are also competing fiercely, especially on price.
With the current selling price of feed, businesses only win or lose, except for a few enterprises with large capital, importing raw materials from times of low price to profit and develop, most of which are foreign companies. Therefore, the market of small businesses is shrinking while the market share of large enterprises is growing.
Mr. Pham Duc Binh, vice president of Vietnam Feed Association, director of Thanh Binh Co., Ltd. (Dong Nai), said that imported corn is much cheaper than domestically produced corn, so businesses are importing more and more corn. Not only domestic corn cannot compete with imported corn (the price to Vietnam is only 4,400 VND/kg), domestic soybeans also have no chance to develop because imported soybeans are only about 8,000-8,200 VND/kg.
"Domestic corn mainly serves the segment of smallholder farmers or local animal feed processing factories. Imported corn is not only cheap, but the quality is also better than domestic corn, so the production companies are all preferred. buy foreign goods" - Mr. Binh said.
The business director of a livestock enterprise admitted that along with the development of the livestock industry, the demand for importing raw materials from abroad is increasing due to limited domestic supply and difficulty to develop further. Moreover, cheap imported feed materials will facilitate the reduction of feed prices, and the cost of livestock in Vietnam will also decrease.
"Up to now, many linked chains have been able to produce pork, chicken, and eggs at low prices on par with other countries in the region. Vietnam's meat and eggs have the opportunity to export to domestic markets. next time," he said.
Import also poor quality goods
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Ha, director of a food processing company in Binh Duong, said that there is a big conflict of interest between growers and breeders. Due to the policy of reducing import tax to almost 0% in feed materials, farmers' livestock prices have decreased. However, this is also the reason why growers, especially corn and cassava, face difficulties because of low selling prices and precarious output.
In addition, imported agricultural products not only compete with domestic products of the same type but also compete with domestically produced substitutes. "The price of corn has been reduced, the price of cassava chips and tapioca starch has also decreased because imported goods account for all of the domestic demand. As a result, businesses have to find ways to export and are forced to price at home outside," said Mr. Ha.
According to Mr. Ha, the State needs to have flexible and balanced policies between different farmers. It is not possible for the sake of the breeder to take away the rights of the grower. Because anyway, it is necessary to be self-sufficient in a part of domestic feed materials instead of relying 100% on imports, which will be very risky.
"In Southeast Asia, no country has opened the door to all imported feed ingredients like Vietnam, they still have tax policies or conditions to regulate imports to ensure a balance for domestic production. "- said Ha.
In addition, according to many feed manufacturing companies, the licensing of import of feed materials also creates the risk of poor quality goods pouring into Vietnam. According to businesses, there is a situation where some units import poor quality meat and bone meal for the purpose of fertilizer processing and then selling to feed processing factories. This is very dangerous, not only affecting the quality of the product and the cost of the farmer, but also the risk of disease outbreaks.
Tighten in controlling bone meal materials
Following the latest information from the Department of Livestock Production, there has been an official letter advising agencies and businesses in the field of importing meat and bone meal for animal feed processing about the risk of importing poor quality goods. According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Duong - Deputy Director of the Department of Livestock Production, import activities of meat and bone meal materials in the coming time will be strictly controlled in terms of origin.
"Importing enterprises must prove the origin from the exporter that the source of goods is used as feed. If the origin of goods cannot be proved, they will be forced to re-export" - Mr. Duong said. According to Mr. Duong, every year, Vietnamese enterprises import 300,000-400,000 tons of meat and bone meal for the production of livestock, poultry and aquatic products.
- Trần Mạnh Tuổi Trẻ Newspaper