Boosting biosafety livestock farming

Identifying biosafety livestock farming as a sustainable direction for the livestock sector, in recent times, the Provincial People's Committee has directed relevant departments and branches to coordinate with localities to actively promote, support, and guide people to increase the application of biosafety livestock farming measures. Up to now, over 85% of enterprises, cooperatives, and large-scale livestock farming households in the province have successfully applied biosafety and VietGAHP livestock farming methods, with the economic efficiency increasing by an average of 15-20%/year.

Nam Phong Cooperative, Xuan Truc Commune (An Thi) raises biosafety poultry

After the impact of African swine fever on pigs, for the past 3 years, Nam Phong Cooperative in Xuan Truc Commune (An Thi) has shifted to poultry farming. To improve the efficiency of livestock farming and ensure income for members, the cooperative has applied the biosafety livestock farming process and paid attention to environmental protection to limit the occurrence of pathogens. Mr. Nguyen Van Phong, Director of Nam Phong Cooperative, said: The cooperative maintains raising over 3,000 chickens/batch according to the biosafety livestock farming method. The barns are invested in cooling systems, ventilation fans, the barns are cleaned and disinfected periodically, the environment around the barns and roads are sprinkled with lime powder. The cooperative invests in incubators to be proactive in source breeds. During the farming process, chickens are fully vaccinated and supplemented with probiotics and minerals to help with digestion and increase resistance. Since applying the biosafety livestock farming method, the farm has not had any disease outbreaks, the chickens are healthy, develop well, and the loss rate has been reduced.

The application of the biosafety process in animal husbandry has helped the pig farm of Mr. Nguyen Van Dung's family in Quang Chau commune (Hung Yen city) overcome the "storm" of African swine fever. Mr. Dung affirmed: biosafety farming provides stable productivity and product quality. In addition, technically guaranteed farming helps control diseases and limit risks in production. When the African swine fever epidemic broke out in the province and the whole country, my family's pig farm was not affected, animal husbandry activities still took place normally, commercial pigs were sold to the market regularly, ensuring both quantity and quality. For more than 6 years now, my family has regularly maintained raising over 1,000 pigs; selling an average of 15 tons of pigs/month, with the revenue reaching over 3 billion VND/year.

To carry out the Project on developing biosafety livestock farming, VietGAHP livestock farming to ensure disease safety, food safety and environmental protection for the period 2020 - 2025, with a vision to 2030, from 2020 to present, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has coordinated with localities to organize nearly 90 training courses, transferred scientific and technical advances in biosafety and VietGAHP livestock farming to over 4,500 people; supported over 110 livestock farming households to apply biosafety and VietGAHP processes in production; supported 6 manure separator machines and nearly 10 biogas tanks for farms to ensure environmental hygiene in livestock farming areas... From there, nearly 15 thousand tons of live pigs, about 5 thousand tons of poultry meat, over 79 million poultry eggs... meeting VietGAHP standards have been produced for the market. Up to now, the whole province has over 120 livestock farms granted VietGAHP certificates; the rate of breeding by artificial insemination for livestock herds reaches over 95%...

However, currently, the synchronous application of biosafety and VietGAHP livestock farming methods in some farms and livestock households in the province still faces some difficulties due to insufficient conditions in terms of livestock land area, lack of infrastructure for barns, production equipment and supplies, capital sources... To overcome the above situation, the province continues to have preferential mechanisms and policies on loans, planning concentrated livestock farming areas, far from residential areas to create conditions for livestock households to build closed farms, creating motivation to form cooperatives, developing chains from production to slaughter, processing and consumption of products. Every year, functional sectors in the province coordinate with localities to organize reviews and support the development of OCOP products, collective brands for livestock products and qualified post-processed livestock products to increase product value, beef up the expansion of consumption markets.

Comrade Le Trung Can, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: biosafety livestock farming, following the VietGAHP process, is a necessary direction, bringing sustainable efficiency to the province's livestock farming activities with an average economic efficiency increase of 15% compared to traditional livestock farming methods, providing safe livestock products, bringing health benefits to the community.