VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam’s number of cows has decreased by 1.5 million just over the last five years. Experts believe that Vietnam won’t be able to build a cow husbandry.

No grassland for cows

Some years ago, realizing the increasingly high domestic demand for beef, some investors decided to set up a company – Trang Trai Viet – aiming to develop a chain of cow farms which provide beef to the domestic market.

Trang Trai Viet said it would raise Red Angus cows sourced from the US and Brahman cows from Australia in Cu Chi district in HCM City.

The investors, when comparing the bank deposit interest rates and the minimum expected profit of the project, estimated at 47 percent per annum, thought that cow farming would be an attractive investment channel.

However, Phan Van Thang from Trang Trai Viet has said the company has suspended the program on cooperating with investors to develop cow farms.

Trang Trai Viet is now raising 200 cows on an area of 2.5 hectares, while it is still unclear if it can fulfill the plan to raise the farming scale to 5,000 cows in 2013-2018.

Three years ago, Luu Tri Dien, a Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) in Switzerland poured his money into a cow farm in Ba Tri district of Ben Tre. About 200 cows were raised in the farm covering an area of 7 hectares.

According the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), these are the two biggest cow farms in Vietnam, while the others have smaller scale, with just 10 cows, run by households.

The lack of the land fund, plus the high prices of cow breeders both make investors hesitant to invest their money in the husbandry industry. Cows have been raised mostly by households which try to take full advantage of the natural feed.

There won’t be a cow husbandry industry

According to Nguyen Xuan Duong from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the number of cows has decreased from 6.7 million in 2007 to 5.2 million in 2012, because the area of grassland suitable to the cow husbandry has been narrowed rapidly in the urbanization process.

Duong said it is now obvious that Vietnam does not have the advantages of developing the husbandry at a large scale. Even the households in Long An province and HCM City, which live on the animal husbandry, prefer breeding milk cows to get better profits.

This is why the domestic husbandry can only satisfy a part of the domestic beef demand, while Vietnam would have to continue importing cows.

Since the amount of cows has been decreasing over the last five years, Vietnam has to import cows across the border lines from Laos, Cambodia and Thailand to satisfy the domestic demand.

According to the Quang Tri provincial Farmers’ Association, about 500 cows are brought to Vietnam from Laos across the border every day. However, the cows have been declared as the locally raised cows.

MARD said it cannot count the number of cows imported to Vietnam through unofficial channels, but it is sure it is a big figure.

The limited domestic beef supply has prompted enterprises to import cows from Australia to sell on the domestic market. The imports are believed to be well competitive in the market, because their prices are “affordable”, just 15 higher than domestic products.

Kim Chi