Food supply is abundant during Tet holiday.

Việt Nam•16/01/2025

With only a few days left until the Lunar New Year of the Snake 2025, farmers, cooperatives, and production groups across the country are actively raising livestock, poultry, and raising aquatic products to meet the needs of the people.

Consumers shop at GO! and Big C supermarkets. (Photo: MINH TRANG)

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development , food items on the market are quite abundant and diverse.

According to the Department of Animal Husbandry, due to the basic control of animal diseases, livestock and poultry farming is developing well. Thanks to favorable weather conditions for both aquaculture and fishing, the total aquatic product output in 2024 is estimated at 9.6 million tons. Currently, the prices of live pigs and chickens remain stable, ensuring profitability for farmers. As the Lunar New Year approaches, the demand for food and foodstuffs typically increases by 10 to 15% compared to previous months.

Nguyen Trong Long, Director of Hoang Long Cooperative in Thanh Oai District ( Hanoi ), shared that the facility is currently raising over 4,500 fattening pigs and 500 breeding sows. The farm expects to sell between 100 and 150 tons of pork daily to serve the market during this period. At traditional markets in the capital, pork belly is sold at 135-150 thousand VND/kg, pork shoulder at 125 thousand VND/kg; and ribs at 115-130 thousand VND/kg.

Meanwhile, seafood prices at local markets in Hanoi are showing a slight upward trend. Carp prices range from 80,000 to 100,000 VND/kg, tilapia from 50,000 to 60,000 VND/kg, shrimp from 250,000 to 450,000 VND/kg; beef prices range from 270,000 to 350,000 VND/kg; and there is an abundant supply of eggs, livestock, and poultry meat. According to Ms. Le Thi Luong, a chicken vendor at Long Bien Market (Hanoi), the price of free-range chicken is currently between 140,000 and 150,000 VND/kg, and it will likely be higher closer to Tet (Lunar New Year) due to increased demand.

Providing further information on this matter, Le Quang Thang, Director of the Dong Tao Chicken Breeding and Trading Cooperative (Khoai Chau district, Hung Yen province), said that thanks to its good quality, Dong Tao chickens are trusted by many people nationwide and abroad; in 2024, the total chicken flock increased by more than 30% compared to the previous year. To serve the market during the Lunar New Year of the Year of the Snake, the cooperative has prepared about 1,000 chickens for sale to consumers as gifts (large-legged, beautiful-looking chickens) and about 7,000 commercial chickens.

According to the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the city currently has nearly 1.5 million pigs, over 42 million poultry, and over 124,000 cattle; 6,736 large, medium, and small-scale farms, and over 152,000 livestock farming households; 16,000 aquaculture households, of which 12,920 establishments have signed food safety commitments, and 69 aquaculture establishments have been and are applying good aquaculture practices with a total area of 510 hectares…

In addition to agricultural, forestry, and aquatic products produced within the city, Hanoi's agricultural sector has proactively connected with and exploited the supply of agricultural, forestry, and aquatic goods from 1,327 supply chains in other provinces and cities under the Program of Coordination between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Hanoi People's Committee on "Ensuring food safety, improving the quality and value of agricultural, forestry, and aquatic supply chains between Hanoi and other provinces and cities nationwide in the period 2021-2025" to ensure sufficient food supply for the market during the Tet holiday.

Some agricultural and food items stockpiled by units and businesses to serve the people include: 298,350 tons of rice, 59,670 tons of pork, 19,890 tons of poultry meat, 16,500 tons of beef, 396 million poultry eggs, 331,500 tons of vegetables, etc.; distributed through 30 shopping centers, 131 supermarkets, and 455 markets to bring essential goods at stable prices to the poor and disadvantaged, so that people can have a more fulfilling Tet holiday.

In Ho Chi Minh City, key businesses participating in the Market Stabilization Program have prepared capital exceeding 22,000 billion VND, including over 8,000 billion VND for essential food supplies for the 2025 Tet holiday, comprising approximately 8,300 tons of rice, 5,000 tons of livestock meat, 5,500 tons of poultry meat, and 23 million eggs...

For example, the Vietnam Livestock Industry Corporation supplied the market with 930 tons of fresh food and nearly 3,700 tons of processed food. To maintain stable prices during this period, the Ho Chi Minh City Commercial Cooperative Union implemented a plan to stockpile goods with a total output of over 12,000 tons, mainly allocated to several groups of goods for market stabilization such as rice, livestock meat, poultry meat, eggs, vegetables and fruits, and seafood, with a total value of 10,000 billion VND.

Not only the two major cities, but many other localities across the country have also planned and prepared sufficient supplies. Da Nang City has a total reserve value of essential goods such as rice, various types of meat, vegetables, and fruits, amounting to over 2,800 billion VND. In addition, the city has organized 14 price-stabilized sales points, concentrated in markets near residential areas, strategically distributed across districts, to serve the public from January 25th to 27th, 2025.

To ensure that people nationwide can celebrate Tet (Lunar New Year) warmly and economically, one of the urgent tasks at this time for relevant ministries and sectors, including Agriculture and Rural Development, Industry and Trade, and Health, is to strengthen inter-sectoral coordination in ensuring food safety. This is because in many places, some food production, processing, and trading establishments still have violations. The frequent operation of informal markets also makes it difficult to manage, inspect, and handle food safety violations.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued a document on strengthening management measures to ensure food safety, especially before, during, and after the Lunar New Year of the Year of the Snake 2025. Accordingly, it requests provinces and cities to direct specialized agencies and local authorities at all levels to coordinate with information and communication agencies to disseminate legal regulations on food safety, the harmful effects and consequences of using banned substances, outside the list of permitted substances, in the initial production, harvesting, preservation, preliminary processing, and processing of agricultural, forestry, and aquatic products.

Local authorities need to continue implementing Plan No. 1751/KH-BCĐTƯATTP dated December 18, 2024, of the Central Steering Committee on Food Safety regarding the implementation of food safety assurance work for the Lunar New Year of the Year of the Snake and the Spring Festival season of 2025.

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