Founded more than 20 years ago, Gia Phat Farm (Tan Thanh Dong Commune, Cu Chi District) is currently one the biggest pig farms in the suburb of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).

This is a safe and closed loop livestock farming model starting from breeds and feed to fully grown market hogs and processed pork products.

Gia Phat Pig Farm was founded in 1997 by Tram Quoc Thang on a 2-ha ground with 200 hogs. After more than 20 years, now the total area of the farm hasbecome 7.5 times larger (15 ha). The farm currently consists of two areas: one area for breeding pig farming with the scale of 1,000 pigs and the other one for gilt and market hog farming with the scale of 5,000 pigs.

For years after the establishment, Gia Phat Farm had been focusing on producing market hogs for dealers. Since 2012, the farm has started investing in high quality breeding pig farming. With the loan of 20 billion dong from Agribank Cu Chi Branch and the support in loan interest from the local authority under the program for encouraging the restructuring in urban agriculture, Gia Phat Farm was able to build a modern construction for breeding pig farming.

To have a high-quality pig herd, the farm owner, Tram Quoc Thang,had to go to many countries owning developed livestock farming industry such as Canada, the USA, etc. to buy the very first breeding pigs. Furthermore, Gia Phat Farm usually imports high quality breeding pigs as well.Owning a sow herd at the that scale, the farm can now meet the needs for market hogs of its own and supply to other farm members in the Tien Phong Safe Pig Farming Cooperative. The breeding pigs raised by Gia Phat are disease free, grow well to be good market hogs.

Gia Phat is also one of the few self-sufficient in feed. Graduating in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine (HCMC University of Agriculture and Forestry) and used to be the owner of a big animal feed agent, Tram Quoc Thang has wide knowledge of how to produce safe animal feed, assure the growth and economic efficiency of pig herd.Therefore, he launched his own feed production meeting safe criteria for the whole herd of the farm.

In 2009, Gia Phat together with 7 other pig farms in Cu Chi and Hoc Mon District established Tien Phong Safe Pig Farming Cooperative. All of these farms have been following the biosafety process in pig farming to produce pork satisfying food hygiene and safety standard. Thus, Gia Phat Farm has been granted VietGAP certificated for years now.

Not stopping at producing market hogs to sell to dealers, in 2017, Tram QuocThang took the risk to use the loan from Agribank to invest in building a pork processing facility such as sausages, pork pies (gio cha), etc. satisfying food hygiene and safety criteria in food processing. It was really a bold step to take but it brough it beautiful results as it has been helping increase the value of the pig as well as reducing the pressure on the consumption of market hogs every time the market gets rocky.Up to this point, Tram Quoc Thang’s facility can produce 60% of planned products with the daily production of 1 ton per day (installed capacity is 3 tons per day). The very first batch of products has reached the local market and been well received by consumers.

Thanks to applyinga modern, closed loop and food hygiene and safety guaranteed pig farming process, which helps reduce production costs considerably, for all these years, even when market gets rocky, Gia Phat Farm has always been developing stably and efficiently.

Currently, the average monthly revenue of Gia Phat Farm from market hogs is at about 5 billion dong. For product processing, as things get settled, monthly revenue is expected to be around 6 billion dong. With profit of about 10%, it is possible to say that Gia Phat is currently one of the top pig farms in HCMC for both scale and economic efficiency. Especially, the farm has successfully built a closed loop, food hygiene and safety guaranteed model from breeds, feed to market hogs and processed pork products.

Thanh Son & Do Quyen - translated by Viet Ha