From All About Feed
Farmers in Vietnam are feeding leftover unsaleable watermelons to their livestock. The economic climate and changing legislation is forcing farmers to make alternative use of the fruit. Can watermelons be a good alternative for animal feed?
Vietnemese farmers feed their cattle watermelon. Photo from All About Feed.
Ms. Dinh Thi Thu, a farmer in Thanh Phu Village, says that her family has harvested only 50% of their 1,200sq.m of watermelon fields. The remaining fruit is beginning to crack and rot in the fields. “Last week traders told us that watermelon trucks were stuck at the border gate. This week they complained that the state authorities were weighing trucks, so that they could not make a profit from watermelons. So they offered us merely VND500 to VND1,000 ($0.025-0.05) per kilo,” Thu says.
After harvesting over 30 tonnes of watermelons, Mr. Dang Quang Anh in My Anh Village feels like he’s sitting on fire because he cannot contact the trader who deposited VND2 million ($100). “We were happy to have a good watermelon harvest, but now we are in misery because traders unexpectedly stopped purchasing our products. Several days ago they told us that the state had begun weighing trucks. They had to pay more for transport services so their profit was slimmed to the point that they had to stop buying watermelons,” Anh says.
Farmers do not know what to do with the ripe melons other than turning them into animal feed. “By eating too much watermelon, many buffalo and cows end up with diarrhoea,” says Mr. Phan Duy Khanh, Chair of Tinh Tra Sommune, Son Tinh District.
Read the full article from All About Feed.
