August 6, 2012

Vietnam's feed prices 20% higher than other regional countries

As the local feed industry depends too heavily on imported materials, Vietnamese animal feed prices are now 20% higher than the same goods in other regional countries.

Prices of several animal feed materials continued the uptrend in July. Soymeal increased to VND15,603 (US$0.75) per kilogramme in July, up 15.2% over the preceding month, while cassava and rice bran marked up a respective 6% and 10% to VND5,565 (US$0.27) and VND6,720 (US$0.32) a kilogramme.

Animal feed sales agents in Lai Thieu, Binh Duong said prices of mixed feeds still stayed at high. Specifically, feeds for over-60-kilogrammeme pigs are currently sold at VND9,260 (US$0.44) per kilogramme, and chicken feeds are priced at VND10,525 (US$0.50) a kilogramme.

Feed price increases further exhaust the local livestock industry, said Binh. Since the year's beginning, the livestock industry has encountered many difficulties caused by low livestock product prices, sending many farming households to the verge of bankruptcy.

Vietnam's animal feed producers depend much on imported materials. If this issue is not settled, the livestock industry will continue to run into similar problems, Binh stressed.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, animal feed imports are estimated at US$250 million in July, taking the total import turnover of this item to US$1.3 billion in seven months.

Although feed imports in the first seven months dropped 3.3% on-year, animal feeds and materials still have the highest import value among agro-aqua-forestry related products.