March 31, 2004

 

 

Vietnam Ready To Restore Poultry Stocks

 

Vietnam's original poultry stocks are ready to produce breeding fowls again.

 

The country now has 12 farms raising 31,000 fowl managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

 

According to MARD, the country will meet the production demand of for chicken from now until the first quarter of next year but lacks about 10-12 million breeding ducks and geese.

 

Vietnam strives to obtain the targets of 165-180 million chickens, 60-65 million ducks and geese and production of 330-350 tons of poultry meat and 4.3-4.7 billion eggs by 2005.

 

In the 2006-2010 period, the country plans to obtain an annual growth rate of 7 percent and raise the number of poultry to 340-345 million birds with total meat output of 563,000 tons and 6.5-6.7 billion eggs.

 

The Government has shared with farmers losses caused by the pandemic. An estimated 500 billion VND was allocated from the State budget to compensate for culled poultry stocks. Farmers received 3,000 VND for each culled bird. The Government has also fully covered the cost of disinfection work. 

 

In an effort to recover the national poultry stocks, the Government has decided to subsidize affected farmers 2,000 VND for each bird for breeding. Financial support will also be provided to hatcheries, especially those specialising in rare species, and businesses importing breed poultry. All this is aimed at ensuring fast recovery and high quality so as to prevent any possible surge in market prices.

 

It will take poultry farmers at least two months from the end of the epidemic to resume production, one year to get back to routine and three years to recover their stocks, said the MARD.

 

Bird flu first hit a chicken farm run by the Ha Tay Company Ltd, just west of Ha Noi, in December last year. The disease then fast developed into a pandemic throughout 57 out of the country's 64 provinces and cities and caused numerous losses, especially the slaughter of some 43.2 million birds, including 29.7 million chickens, and 62,000 eggs.

 

Worst hit were the Mekong delta and the southeastern region as some individual provinces had up to 2 million birds culled.

 

Damages are estimated at 1.3 trillion VND (83 million USD). The epidemic also caused a market chaos and pullution to environment, especially in places where massive poultry slaughters took place.