Pig price up to 80,000 VND/kg, Deputy Prime Minister directs market assessment

Pork for sale at a supermarket in Hanoi - Photo: C. TUE

On March 27, the Government Office issued an official dispatch conveying the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha regarding the issue of pork and pork price steam.

Specifically, previously, the press reported that the price of live pigs in some provinces and cities of Vietnam reached 80,000 VND/kg, the live pig market reaching a new peak, the highest in the past 5 years.

The local shortage of domestic pork has pushed pork prices up with no end in sight.

According to experts, pig prices in the coming days are likely to continue to increase slightly, especially in the North and Central regions.

Mr. Nguyen Kim Doan, vice president of the Dong Nai Province Livestock Association, said that African swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease have been quite complicated since last year, which has reduced pig production.

At farms, many newborn pigs and suckling pigs cannot grow fast enough, reducing the number of breeding pigs and the herd, thereby pushing up pork prices rapidly, and farm owners have not had time to rebuild their herds.

The epidemic will soon be controlled and meat production will stabilize. However, pork prices and supply will hardly recover completely as before.

In fact, the cost of investing in animal feed has started to be higher than last year, so farmers have been cautious when re-herding...

In response to this reflection, the Deputy Prime Minister directed the Minister of Agriculture and Environment to preside over and coordinate with The Ministry of Industry and Trade, associations, and enterprises assess the market situation; promptly direct and guide agencies and localities to deploy solutions to ensure supply and demand, focus on promoting livestock farming, herd restoration, and disease control.

At the same time, control intermediaries and strictly implement instructions on price management.

Pig price forecast to remain high at 75,000 - 80,000 VND/kg until the end of March

According to the report of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), by the end of February 2025, the total pig herd in the country was 26.8 million (not including 4.5 million piglets with their mothers, an increase of 3.2% over the same period last year).

The department said that from February to early March pork price The price of pork has increased and is still at a high level, especially in the southern region (up to 83,000 VND/kg of live pig), which is contrary to the law of previous years. This is the highest price in the past 3 years.

The Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine explained that the increase in pork prices was due to the outbreak of several epidemics in the southern provinces in the last months of 2024, causing damage to the sow herd.

Along with that, the Southeast provinces tightened environmental management, conducted a general review, and planned to relocate large farms and contract farms out of areas where farming was not allowed according to regulations, leading to many commercial farms and contract farms leaving their barns empty or not being put into operation at full capacity, leading to local shortages as present.

Another important reason is the positive impact of the review results on tightening imports of pigs and pork products.

In particular, the drastic anti-smuggling work of the Environmental Crime Prevention Police Department (C05) maintained from before Tet until now has limited the large amount of livestock, including pigs, crossing the border of the southern provinces.

The Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine also said that since mid-March, pork prices have shown signs of slowing down and tending to decrease slightly in all three regions, but are still at 75,000-80,000 VND/kg. It is forecasted that pork prices will likely remain around this level until the end of March 2025.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/gia-heo-hoi-len-80-000-dong-kg-pho-thu-tuong-chi-dao-danh-gia-thi-truong-3350472.html