Pigs being farmed in Đồng Nai Province’s Vĩnh Cửu District. The province plans to develop more slaughterhouse clusters in the next five years. – VNA/VNS Photo Minh Hưng

ĐỒNG NAI – The south-eastern province of Đồng Nai plans to increase the number of its slaughterhouse clusters to 58 in the next five years.  

Under a plan approved by its People’s Committee, they will have a capacity of slaughtering 360 buffaloes and oxen, nearly 7,400 pigs and 178,000 chickens a day.

They will be located far from residential areas, schools, hospitals, rivers, and springs, meet certain sanitation standards and have facilities to treat liquid and solid wastes.

The province will encourage co-operatives and companies to set them up with advanced technologies and link up with livestock farms, and offer them tax, land rent and credit incentives.

After developing the slaughterhouse clusters, it will cancel the licences of abattoirs that are not in the plan and crack down on illegal ones.

It now has 41 clusters though most are of small capacity, according to its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Yet they do not operate at full capacity since they cannot compete with the dozens of illegal slaughterhouses that exist around the province and offer lower prices.

The province, which has the country’s largest livestock population, has many large companies which have linked up with farming households that raise animals.

Many livestock co-operatives operate on an industrial scale but also buy livestock from non-members. 

Đồng Nai had 1.9 million pigs and 26.18 million chickens, among its key agricultural products, as of last month, according to its Statistics Office. – VNS