Workers feed cows at a farm (Photo: VNA)Dak Lak (VNA) – TheCentral Highlands provinces have transformed cattle farming from a traditional,extensive grazing smallholder system to a more intensive, large-scale productionto improve income of many local ethnic minority households.
According to the CentralHighlands Steering Committee, Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Dak Nong and Lam Dong havetaken the advantage of favourable weather condition and large areas for growingforage crops and launched a number of incentives to facilitate the developmentof stall-fed cattle farms.
The provinces now have thousandsof cattle farms breeding more than 100 cows or buffaloes each.
Many smallholder families from theethnic minority groups have no longer raised one or more cattle in the traditionalextensive grazing production mostly for home consumption or asset accumulation.
They have increased their farmsize to dozens of cattle with stall feeding and shifted to growing foreignbreeds with higher meat yield, for example, Zebu originating in South Asia.
This has helped improve theefficiency and quality of cattle production, thus lifting them out of poverty.
Cattle farming accounted forapproximately 81 percent of the total value of the Central Highlands region’sbreeding industry and grew at an average pace of more than 7.1 percentannually.
It earned the region over 25trillion VND (1.1 billion USD) in 2016, with the largest earners being Dak Lak,Lam Dong and Gia Lai.
The region is home to more than962,000 cattle, including about 862,000 cows.-VNA
VNA
