IMPACT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON DEVELOPMENT OF LIVESTOCK - PRODUCTION IN VIETNAM

摘要

Livestock are vital to the economies and play a secondary role following rice production for many years in Vietnam where more than 70% of the population still are engaged in agriculture (Ly, 2002, 2003; Agroviet, 2006). They serve as a source of protein in human diets, as farm income, their manure is a valuable fertilizer for crop production and for many peasant populations, livestock can serve as store of wealth, provide draught power and as means of transport. Since the early 1990s, the "innovation" in the economy has moved Vietnam from chronic food deficit to being the world's second largest rice exporter (Ly, 2002), many changes have also taken place in livestock production. New stock and breeds of poultry, pigs and cattle are imported from the countries where livestock production is highly developed; traditional mixed farms in which farmers raise a few animals using agriculture by-products alongside their crop are increasingly displaced by large-scale and market-oriented production with thousand animals fed by commercial feeds; industrialized livestock production are formed and for the farmers' with capacity to venture in to this enterprise livelihood is remarkably improved (NIAH, 2004). The immense growth in per capita income has boosted consumption of livestock products and created an opportunity for intensification.