Pig raising development in Hong Ha commune, Dan Phuong district, Hanoi
Hong Ha commune is located in the North of Dan Phuong district, 7 km from the district center, the Northeast shares border with Lien Hong commune; Ha Mo commune to the Southeast; Trung Chau commune to the Southwest; Northwest is next to 3 communes of Me Linh District. The commune has convenient waterways and transportation to exchange goods with neighboring areas and Hanoi.
The total natural area of the commune is 996,36 hectares, of which agricultural land is 206,58ha; non-agricultural land is 445,45ha. The commune has 5 villages, including Van Loi hamlet. There are total of 3,203 households with the population of 13,081 people. The agricultural labors is 10,857, accounting for 83%. Life of people mainly live on agriculture, selling fruit and food processing. The commune has 01 traditional villages for tofu and wine making. There are 964 tofu and wine making households at present, 657 pig raising households with 12,673 pigs.
In recent years, household economy has continuously grown, of which livestock contributed more than 60% of the income of agriculture of the commune, a significant contribution to increasing rich households, reduce poverty sustainability, raise incomes, improve living conditions for farmers in the commune.
Hong Ha commune maintains 10 thousand pigs annual. The productivity reached over 1,500 tons per year. Thank to tofu and wine making, people utilize by-products for livestock production, reduces cost of feed for pigs, piglets source ensures 50% of demand by self-pig breeding, regardless on external market. The knowledge of disease prevention has always been interested by farmers’ Union such as provide technical trainings, short-term vocational training on veterinary livestock for farmer members, therefore few pig diseases occur, low veterinary costs, increase product value, bring high economic value for the livestock households.
However, there are still many pig raising households in residential areas with old traditional raising methods in Hong Ha Commune, utilizing byproducts of traditional food processing villages for livestock which waste so much discharged daily. In the past years, the propaganda and policies to support farmers to build biogas system to ensure sanitation rate is still limited, partly due to economic difficulties and low sense of environmental protection of some households. Households have not been confident to apply advanced scientific techniques in production. They still expect and rely on commune authority, sanitation is considered as government task, small scale production, not yet formed concentrated breeding areas with large scale. The markets for livestock products is difficulty together with unstable price of animal feed and veterinary drugs. The livestock areas are limited for expansion.
Thanks to the support of Hanoi and Dan Phuong Famers’ Union, in 2015 Hong Ha has been implementing pig raising on biology padding models to minimize environmental pollution and make food safety in 03 pig farms (including my family households). The results assessment of the models after one year was highly appreciated by the local authority and agencies and become good models for other households to learn and apply. This kind of model are being duplicated to 10 other farms in the commune at present.
My family currently has 600 m2 for pig raising with 130 commercial pigs / litter; 60 baby piglets / litter and 30 saws, 04 boars. Excluding the production cost, our family income is about 600 million to 700 million VND / year. Thank to support of Famers’ Union and authorities at different levels and together with our family members effort, the livestock activity has created jobs and raised stable incomes for my family.
To enhance the value of output for the livestock product, the grower in Hong Ha commune need to apply clean and organic method. At the same time, waste treatment in animal husbandry to reduce pollution environment, water pollution and reduce the disease to humans and pets need to be highly considered. This also address international economic integration requirements which Vietnam has joined the Trans-Pacific trade (TPP).
By Y Voan