Circular economy future of livestock farming

The transition to the circular economy is inevitable in the livestock farming industry, according to Võ Trọng Thành, a representative from the Department of Husbandry, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

The representative made the remarks at a seminar on the circular economy yesterday.

He said the industry was raising over 28.8 million pigs, 8.9 million heads of cattle, and 533 million heads of poultry to date, generating an aggregate annual revenue of US$23.7 billion.

However, many livestock farms still keep up their traditional practices of farming, causing serious damage to the environment and resulting in inefficient use of resources.

"The huge number of cattle and poultry can have a significant impact on the environment," said Thành.

With such a serious concern, Thành called for a broad-based transition to the circular economy, which would be the catalyst for sustainable agriculture with zero carbon emissions by mid-century.

He also highlighted several obstacles to the transition, which involve the low awareness of the circular economy among small- and medium-sized enterprises, their unwillingness to try new ideas, and their limited financial capabilities to finance large-scale recycling facilities.

Nguyễn Trí Công, chairman of the Animal Husbandry Association of Đồng Nai Province, revealed that in the circular economy, waste from a production unit can be recycled into materials used in another unit, creating a production loop.

However, many green enterprises in Việt Nam are unable to close their production loop due to the hindrance from the Law on Environment and Law on Environment Protection. He took cow-rearing enterprises as an example.

The enterprises cannot buy bagasse, a low-cost agricultural waste, to feed their cows because, under the laws, bagasse is categorised as 'waste' that cannot be transported to their farms.

Nguyễn Thế Hinh, deputy head of the Agricultural Project Management Board, MARD, underlined three technologies that can be employed in large-scale farms to treat waste.

He said the Low Carbon Agricultural Support Project had supported farms with over 2,000 heads of cattle in obtaining the technologies over the years.

At the end of the project, farms outfitted with the technologies showed a profit margin 20 per cent higher than those without, and their investment paid back in just five years.

The deputy head called for more favourable policies to encourage more farms to embrace the technologies. He also suggested the establishment of agricultural waste-collecting facilities to recycle the farms' fecal matter into manure.

Nguyễn Anh Phong, director of the Insitute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, called for more legal documents to make the circular economy a norm in the agricultural sector.

He also called for favourable policies to support enterprises in their path toward the circular economy. At the same time, the government must take an active role in promoting technology transfer and raising awareness of the transition across the sector.