September 29, 2003

Vietnam's Livestock And Aquaculture Farms Boom As Profits Turn High

Vietnam's livestock breeding and aquaculture farms are rapidly growing across the country with more efficiency, with each farm raking in hundreds of millions of VND annually, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) reported.

Pig farms make up the largest group of all, accounting for 45.5 percent of total livestock farms, followed by poultry with 26.6 percent and others, 18.7 percent.

Animal farms are mostly concentrated in the southern part of the country, especially the Mekong delta, where the region's food suppliers and animal feed industry can be found. Up to 2,000 pigs or thousands of chickens can be raised in one of these farms, accounting for over 65 percent of the total animal farms nationwide.

In the north, animal farms are turning decent profits although they are less in number. In the Red River Delta, animal farms account for more than 40 percent of the total number of farms and make up over 30 percent of the region's farm's aggregate profit.  

Aquaculture farms, mostly prawn, are also rapidly expanding, numbering at around 17,000. The Mekong Delta alone has shifted hundreds of thousands of hectares once used for rice cultivation, to raising aquatic animals. The region now contains over 71 percent of the country's aquatic farms. These farms are turning over 900 billion VND in annual profit and generating some 180,000 jobs.

The development of aquaculture farms in the region has helped increase the Mekong delta's aquatic export value from 307 million USD in 1996 to over 1 billion USD in 2002. The region has set an aquatic export target of 1.5 billion USD for 2005.