The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on May 22 organised a national conference in Ha Nam province to sum up the three year implementation (2011-2013) of the model using biological padding in animal husbandry.
Politburo member and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, Nguyen Thien Nhan attended the event.
According to MARD’s Animal Husbandry Department, as of November 2013, there were 40/63 provinces and cities across the nation applying the model with a total area of 5.47 million m2, including 70,000m2 for pig raising and 5.4 million m2 for poultry farming.
The model is simple to carry out and materials used for padding are inexpensive (sawdust, rice husk, wood chips, and bagasse). It reduces production costs by saving labour (by not bathing animals and washing farm cages), reducing food losses for animals, and ending transmission of smell from waste into the environment, as well as enhancing resistance to disease and increasing the quality of husbandry products.
The model has been developed in northern Ha Nam province, going from only 15 households with a 250m2 area of padding in 2010 to 3,012 households using 45,000m2 of biological padding by the end of 2013.
Biological padding use in the province has helped eliminate blue ear disease, increase pig numbers and improve the efficiency of the sector in local agricultural development and environmental protection.
Speaking at the conference, Politburo member Nhan praised Ha Nam’s efforts in applying the model to generate positive results, through which other localities can learn from the province’s experiences.
Nhan urged the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences and scientists to accelerate research to perfect the production of biological pads in the animal husbandry sector, improve the best farming model and determine the effectiveness of this model towards the best model for farmers to follow.
