Smallholder Contract Farming of Swine in Northern Viet Nam: Type and Scale of Production

Abstract

The rapid growth in demand for pork in Viet Nam presents an opportunity for rural households keeping swine to improve their incomes. As large proportion of livestock production in Viet Nam stems from smallholder producers, who generally have limited access to markets, inputs, and livestock services, integrating these rural smallholders into the growth process could serve Viet Nam's policy goal of poverty reduction. One possibility of closer integration would be through institutional arrangements that provide smallholders better access to markets and livestock services. In partnership with national and international research institutions, PPLPI initiated a field research project entitled 'Contract Farming for Equitable Market-Oriented Smallholder Swine Production in Northern Viet Nam' to identify forms of institutional arrangements in swine production that would enable smallholder producers to benefit from the demand growth for pork. The ultimate objective of the study to identify a set of policy and other intervention options for the facilitation of profitable, market-oriented livestock farming partnerships between smallholders and larger enterprises. This brief report summarizes initial findings on the major types of production activities swine producers engage in, as well as their scale of operations, in relation to their institutional production and marketing arrangements