Typhoon Yagi kills poultry, pigs, drives up livestock prices in Vietnam

Live pig prices in Vietnam have been rising steadily since Typhoon Yagi and subsequent flooding hit many pig farms in the country, which has been plagued by outbreaks of African swine fever in recent years, Reuters reported.

The typhoon, the strongest storm to hit Asia this year, made landfall in Vietnam’s northern provinces earlier this month, killing nearly 300 people and causing 60.7 trillion dong ($2.47 billion) in damage, according to the government disaster agency.

The agency said more than 22,500 farm animals, including pigs, and more than three million poultry were killed.

Live pig prices rose in northern provinces on Thursday to a range of 65,000 to 70,000 dong ($2.46-$2.85) per kilogram, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade newspaper. Before the typhoon, prices were 64,000 to 67,000 dong, and 55,000 to 58,000 dong a year earlier.

“The floods may also have disrupted pork supply chains and prompted some traders to raise live pig prices,” said Nguyen Xuan Duong, chairman of the Vietnam Animal Husbandry Association.

“However, we are not seeing a pork crisis yet as the effects of the typhoon are temporary,” Duong said, noting that the number of pigs killed is small compared with the country’s pig herd of about 28 million.

The government said in July that African swine fever was spreading in Vietnam, which could affect food supplies and put upward pressure on inflation.

“Outbreaks of the disease continue to this day,” Duong said, without providing further details.

(1 dollar = 24,588 dong)