Modest growth ahead in Vietnamese animal feed output

Expansion in the poultry and aquaculture sectors is forecast to more than compensate for the losses arising from African swine fever, pushing Vietnamese animal feed output up by 500,000 metric tons (mt) in 2019.

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Expansion in the poultry and aquaculture sectors is forecast to more than compensate for the losses arising from African swine fever, pushing Vietnamese animal feed output up by 500,000 metric tons (mt) in 2019.

Total animal feed production is forecast to reach 30.5 million metric tons (mmt) this year — up from an estimated 30.0 mmt in 2018 — according to the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Growth is expected to be particularly strong in feeds for aquaculture species, and in manufactured feeds, according to the agency’s figures.

National output of manufactured feeds could reach 23.0 mmt in 2019 — an increase of 1.1 mmt from last year, with aqua-feed production set to rise 600,000 mt for the year to 4.5 mmt, and other animal feeds are forecast to increase 500,000 mt to 18.5 mmt.

With the sector expanding rapidly since the 1990s, Vietnam now ranks second in Asia in terms of pork production behind China, according to FAS. The country’s recent widespread outbreaks of African swine fever (ASF) are likely to disrupt the production of both pigs and feed in the years to come, although the agency suggests that a price crash in 2017 forced out many smaller pork producers while the sector became dominated by large integrations that could ride out a prolonged period of tight margins.

Modest growth in total Vietnamese feed output is forecast by FAS, due to expansion in the country’s broiler and aquaculture sectors.   

As the country’s animal protein sectors mature and expand, there has been a shift towards manufactured feeds, and away from home-mixing, a trend that FAS expects to continue. At 7.5 mmt, total production of homemade feeds is expected to be 600,000 mt lower this year than in 2018. For the aqua-feed sector, the reduction will be around 200,000 mt to 2.3 mmt, while feeds for other animals is forecast to drop from 5.6 mmt to 5.2 mmt in 2019.

Looking ahead to 2020, FAS expects total feed production in Vietnam to remain stable at 30.5 mmt, with further growth of 200,000 mt in the manufactured feed sector at the expense of the homemade market. Continued expansion of the aquaculture sector is forecast to account for all the growth in output of manufactured feed. For homemade feeds, the aqua-feed sub-sector is forecast to remain stable, while production for other animals will erode further.

ASF has hit the Vietnamese pork sector hard in recent months. Official reports put the number of pigs culled at more than 85,000 across 20 localities. While most of the outbreaks have occurred in backyard herds in the north of the country, cases were detected recently in the Southeast region, which is a key area for pig production.

View our continuing coverage of the African swine fever outbreak.

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