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A fishery farming model of farmers in Dong Nai province

According to the figures released by Dong Nai Statistics Office, in late 2020 the total herds of cattle in the province reached 2.18 million heads, down by 14% including more than 2 million pigs, declining by 14.75% compared to the same period. Currently, most of the pigs raised in the province are such breeds as Yokshire, Landrace, Duroc, and Pietrain. The rate of using breeds with advanced techniques in production reaches 98%. In addition to pigs, the province’s cattle herds are water buffaloes, cows, goats and so on which are mainly raised in a small and scattered scale.

The province’s poultry population is approximately 25.65 million chickens and 2 million ducks and geese. In particular, compared to other livestock animals, chicken farming has advantages in economic efficiency due to a short period of rotation and a fast multiplication coefficient.

The total area for aquaculture is about 32,000 ha, including about 30,000 ha for freshwater farming and about 2,000 ha for brackish water farming. The total number of cages and rafts is approximately 1,000, which are mainly in Dong Nai river, Tri An lake bed and the brackish water area in ​​Nhon Trach district.

In 2019 and the first 3 months of 2020, the prevention of epidemic has been drastically carried out with various solutions with such outstanding activities as disseminating propaganda activities in various forms and means with contents related to dangerous diseases like bird flu, foot-and-mouth disease, blue-ear pig, African swine fever and so on with the aim of raising farmers’ awareness so that they can actively monitor and promptly detect diseases and report it to local authorities. In particular, through the dissemination of propaganda information farmers can often disinfect barns and farms; have their livestock animals vaccinated against diseases; say no to hiding information on epidemics and selling sick poultry and livestock animals; mustn’t dump dead poultry and animals in wrong places; promote the vaccination and epidemiological surveillance; and bring the activities of sanitation and disinfection into order. The province currently has 609 farms that are certified for free-diseases.

The model of raising free-range chickens

However, according to Agriculture and Rural Development’s assessment epidemics in the livestock sector have still developed complicatedly, especially African swine fever, which has caused great losses. In addition, Dong Nai has already had its major roads running through the province. Therefore, there exists high risk of spreading diseases, some small farms have not yet paid sufficient attention to building disease-free facilities and monitoring the risk of infection, the environment for fishery farming and livestock activities have been heavily affected by climate change, and so on.

The contents of the province’s 2020 epidemic prevention and control plan will focus on the basic tasks of epidemic prevention and control. Particularly, for epidemic prevention it is necessary to detoxify, disinfect and clean up the environment; implement the project of “Piloting the building of the province’s disease-free zones for chickens towards meeting export requirements in the period of 2018-2020”; assist to build 40 farms free of foot-and-mouth diseases and African swine fever; apply compulsory vaccination to cattle and poultry twice a year.

It is essential to update the prevention and control of epidemics towards the motto of “Prevention is the key and grassroots units and people are the key”; promote the dissemination of propaganda information, proactively and drastically carry out anti-epidemic solutions at the beginning of the time showing epidemic signs; have pigs culled as required; especially, re-raise herds of livestock animals with various solutions such as helping with the construction of disease-free facilities and coordinating with large livestock businesses to re-raise livestock animals after the epidemic. It is expected that about 300,000 pigs in the province will be raised in late 2020.

The province’s total funding for disease prevention and control in the livestock industry by 2020 is approximately VND64 billion.

Duy Minh (Thanh Ngoc)