Minister Nguyễn Xuân Cường: Determine to secure food and foodstuff in this complicated circumstance

Facing the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak back again and risk of its complicated development, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong emphasized that the agricultural sector is determined to comply with the targets assigned by the Government for the year 2020, which are the production of 43.5 million tons of rice; 8.5 million tons of seafood; 5.8 million tons of meat, more than 14.6 billion eggs and 1.2 million tons of milk.

Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong suggested: Each sub-sector must determine the best effort in this extremely difficult situation, especially the two axes of food and foodstuff  production, not afraid of redundancy or lack of markets as the international situation is complicated.

“China has never experienced floods happening in 27 out of 31 provinces in such a long time. Even the Government had to open series of national reserves, including food and foodstuffs to help people overcome the consequences of natural disasters. India's flooding has also caused great damage. Therefore the goal of food production of the agricultural sector in 2020 as assigned by the Government is unchangeable, must be fully  implemented", Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong emphasized.

Also in August, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development would hold a conference to discuss the re-herd of pigs by cooperatives, small farms and households. Although African swine fever (ASF) developed very complicatedly, but in the country, there are already effective models of bio-safe livestock technology, using probiotics imported from abroad and produced domestically, contributing effectively to disease prevention and control.

The Minister emphasized: Pig re-herd is the prioritized focus. Up to now, the herd of breeding pigs is about 1,200 heads, 2.8 million sows, enough for re-herding on a general scale. However, the weakest point here is that at the small-scale production areas, the cooperative still lacks breeding and cannot be active with the breeding sources. MARD will continue to suggest the local authorities to support people, on the other hand, large enterprises must nurture the domestic market, for the community.

In addition to increasing the re-herd, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong also said that it is necessary to "make joint effort" to develop other livestock products. The goal is to increase the number of chickens to about 12%, but mainly colored chickens and indigenous chickens to ensure high quality so as to meet domestic consumption. In addition, it is necessary to increase the output of beef, eggs and milk.

“To do that, veterinary care must be given special attention. Currently, we have about 550 million chickens, cows and buffaloes, which are also the highest ever. If we do not prevent and fight against epidemic outbreaks well, it will be difficult to protect our achievements ”, Mr. Cuong noted.