After many efforts, the pilot project for creating a disease free zone in Dong Nai has completed with 100% of the facilities in 27 communes of Thong Nhat and Trang Bom District qualified for chicken meat export.

Till now, the province has already built 502 disease free facilities, including 273 poultry farming facilities which are flu and newcastle free; 229 pig farming facilities that are hog cholera and foot-and-mouth disease free.

Lower the chance of disease outbreak
Since the beginning of 2017, Dong Nai has built new disease free zones in 10 communes of Xuan Loc, Long Thanh Cam My and Tan District in order to create a buffer zone. It also plans to build these zones in Long Khanh, Dinh Quan commune and commnues nearby Thanh Duc egg farm (Xuan Loc Commune) so as to guarantee eggs’ quality for export.

To chicken meat exporting countries in the world, Vietnam is still considered an avian influenza infected area. Before the implement of the pilot project based on Decision No. 440/2015 of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, avian influenza was a constant concern of the authority and poultry farmers in Dong Nai. For example, at the beginning of 2014 when a new-genotype H5N1 virus broke out, there were three infected areas with over 10,000 chickens in Dong Nai causing two communes/towns to in Vinh Cuu Commune to announce an outbreak.

Thong Nhat and Trang Bom are the first two districts chosen to implement the pilot project. With this implementation, the two districts didn’t find any trace of the influenza and newcastle virus. Up to now, these two districts have had 114 poultry farming facilities approved to be disease free. 100% of the communes in these two districts (10 communes in Thong Nhat District, 17 communes in Trang Bom District) were approved to be a communal level disease free zone. These two districts are also approved to be district level avian influenza and newcastle free zones by Department of Animal Health.

Due to the target set till the end of 2017, Dong Nai is currently doing its best to build 235 integrated chicken farming facilities recognized as disease free zones compared to the target of the pilot project which was set to be 212 facilities. Thus, the province will have 9 districts recognized as disease free zones with Tan Phu and Xuan Loc District as the buffer zones, and then it will continue to build these zones in the rest of the chosen districts.

La Van Hung – Vice Chairman of Gia Tan 2 Communal People’s Committee (Thong Nhat District) shared that the local authority was doing its best to reach the provincial common target. Communal People’s Committee would closely monitor sanitation issue of poultry farming households and farms. These households would receive support in vaccine, wage, commodities for inoculation, recording, monthly report.

“Poultry farming facilities are obligated to register to build disease free facility for animals linking with quarantine and facilitated to be able to submit report online” – said Hung.

Expand disease free zone
According to Nguyen Van Quang, Manager of Dong Nai Sub Department of Animal Health, the building and certification of communal level disease free zones in Thong Nhat, Trang Bom and 10 communes nearby the chicken farm of Koyo & Unitek Co. Ltd have proven themselves effective as the first batch of chicken was exported to Japan. This achievement is the foundation to build other supply chains.

Poultry farming in Dong Nai has advantage of economic efficiency since many big poultry companies such as CP, Japfa, Emivest, etc. help local farmers with farming method thus their poultry flock develops rapidly.

However, since the beginning of the year till now, as the market price is not stable, only a few farms are chosen for cooperation by local poultry companies. Furthermore, as small farming households are suffering from financial loss, the flock is unable to develop. Also, due to unstable market price, there is a gap between the price of disease-free-zone products and supply chain products and that of normal products making poultry farmers not interested in this model. Meanwhile, farming facilities, slaughterhouses and processing facilities are also not following the technical process to meet strict requirements of the market.

Comparing to 4 other provinces (Ba Ria – Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh) in which the pilot project is also being implemented, Dong Nai is ahead in the number of areas and facilities certified as disease free and aiming to meet the requirements for export.

“Despite the fact that currently there are 502 disease free approved facilities, they only accounts for 30% of the farms in the province. Therefore, the province will continue to expand disease free zone in order to guarantee food safety, origin tracking and soon export quality products”, said Quang.

Up to July 2017, Dong Nai Province has a flock of approximately 18.6 million chickens with 470 farms mostly in Trang Bom and Thong Nhat District (266 farms)

Nguyen Vy - translated by Viet Ha