April 2010

1. POSTER TITLE Enhancing small pigholders’ competitiveness in an adjusting Vietnam market Objective: Identify pragmatic options about technology, institutional arrangements and policy interventions to improve smallholder pig producers’ competitiveness in an adjusting Vietnam market. Project design: Pig value chain approach Component 1: Consumer Demand Analysis Accessing demand for different attributes of pork as a driver for pig production. Access market potential and implications for smallholders’ involvement and competitiveness. Component 2: Producer Analysis Examining current smallholder practices and performance to identify areas where smallholders can compete, what should change and policy, technology and institutional support for these changes to take place. Component 3: Market Actor Analysis Investigating market actors and linkages between supply and demand. Component 4: Pig sector modeling Modeling the linkages and dynamics in pig sector and projecting pig sector development under various policy scenarios. Component 5: Policy Advocacy Policy dialoging among stakeholders about study approach and key messages to ultimately influence local and national livestock policies. • Consumer survey: • Consumer survey report • Empirical demand analysis • Market outlet choice analysis • Producer survey: • Producersurveyreport • Technologyadoptionanalysis • Market actor survey: • Marketactorsurveyreport • Pig sector partial equilibrium moldeling Photo • Main Findings: • Demand for pork • Pork is the dominant type of meat in Vietnamese diet and probably remains so in the future, taking 30% - 40% of total meat expenditure in survey sample. • Demand for pork and other meat would increase considerably with growing consumer affluence. Consumers, however, tend to diversify towards other meat such as poultry, beef and seafood as income rises. • There is a strong preference for fresh pork, which constitutes a natural market protection from imported pork in chilled, frozen or processed forms. • Traditional open markets are still the main outlets for daily pork shopping • Pig disease and chemical residuals are top-rank concerns of meat consumers with respect to food safety. During outbreaks of diseases, consumers tend to reduce meat consumption and/or shift to modern outlets for meat purchase as they are considered safer. This conviction might be misgrounded, however, since our risk assessment exercise showed that pork in supermarkets is not necessarily safer. • Supply of pig: Smallholder perspective • Small pigholders play an important role in pork supply chains and probably remain so in the next few decades. Currently, small pigholders produce more than 70% of total pork supply. • Pig rearing provides an important source of income and household employment to small pigholders in the absence of alternative livelihood options. Women make hugec contribution in pig husbandry • Access to improved breed is associated with scale. Improving breed quality that fits smallholder conditions is critical in improving pig quality and productivity. • High and rising feed cost is a critical constraint to pig producers. Expanding options for own produced feeds, in terms of choices and quality, can potentially enhance smallholder competitiveness. • Under current conditions, small pigholders are still able to generate incomes from pig rearing by exploiting areas where they have cost advantages, given low labor opportunity cost and lower cost of own produced feed and crop by-products. • Market access and linkages among market actors: • There seem no clear differences in smallholders’ accessibility to input suppliers despite the fact that there is price differential across scale, probably due to transaction cost. • Small pigholders appear to be able to capture a reasonable share of end product prices, suggesting a reasonably competitive output market. • Conclusion and implications: • There are market opportunities for pig producers, including those are smallholders, as the economy grows and income rises. Consumer preference for fresh pork and for traditional market outlets favor small pigholders’ participation in pork value chains and provide natural market protection against imported pork. • Small pigholders are competitive and able to generate income from pig production as long as they can exploit areas where they have cost advantages. For the next few decades, smallholder pig rearing still plays important role in pork supply, poverty reduction and household employment generation, especially for women. • Interventions to support access to better technologies (breed and feed) and services that are appropriate to smallholder context would considerably enhance their competitiveness. Share of retail pork price accrued to pig producers The good news is … And the bad news is … Pig rearing is an important and viable livelihood and employment option for poor households in Vietnam Food safety is increasingly concerning issue in developing countries such as Vietnam but risks can be reduced substantially through risk-mitigating practices. April2010 ILRI Insert references or credits HERE INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE