USDA calls for Vietnam’s aquaculture and livestock feed demand ‘to rebound in 2024-25’

The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) attache based in Vietnam has revealed the agency’s forecast for the Southeast Asian country’s 2024-25 marketing year, calling for a rebound in corn imports, with the country’s aquaculture and livestock sectors showing a recovery in demand from its main customers.

Vietnam is one of the biggest corn importers in the world, feeding not just the domestic population but also the country’s huge livestock and aquaculture sector, which underpins substantial imports of corn, feed wheat, meals and other proteins.

The USDA called for feed demand in the 2025 calendar year to reach 27 million tonnes, with 20.9 million tonnes going into animal feed, while 6.1 million tonnes would go to aquaculture.

That would represent a rise of nearly 2% over the 2024 figure, with the bulk heading into aquaculture. Demand here was expected to go up by 7.5% year on year, compared with the more modest 0.4% increase in livestock feed.

For 2024, the USDA estimated total feed demand of 26.5 million tonnes, up by slightly less than 2.5% compared with 2023, when figures were revised lower following a slowdown in demand from key customers. But livestock demand jumped by 3.4% to 20.87 million tonnes.

Aquaculture also showed strong signs of recovery in 2024, with demand up by 7% compared with 2023 to 5.67 million tonnes.

The move came with demand recovering in some of Vietnam’s key export markets, such as the US, China and the EU, prompting the agency to predict “aquaculture and livestock production to rebound in MY 2024/25, increasing overall feed demand.”

Feed ingredient Imports

The agency noted that 75% of all feed ingredients in Vietnam must be imported, creating expectations that demand for feed components, particularly corn, would be likely to recover, raising import outlooks.

Total import demand for feed ingredients was expected to increase by almost 7.2% in 2024 to 19.8 million tonnes, and by 2.6% in 2025 to 20.3 million tonnes, with local supply steady around 6.7 million tonnes across 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Corn was expected to provide the majority of that import volume, up by nearly 5% in 2025 to 8.2 million tonnes (40% of the import total) while 2024 was expected to show an increase of 4.3% to 7.8 million tonnes (around 39.5% of the import need).

Feed wheat demand was expected to recover in 2024 before declining in 2025, amid stronger competition from relatively cheaper corn prices, the USDA said. Imports were expected to increase by 3.4% to 2.3 million tonnes in 2024, then to slip by 5.5% to 2.19 million tonnes.

Soybean meal was expected to provide the second-largest portion of the feed ration over the period, rising by 3.2% to 5.8 million tonnes in 2024, and then by 2.9% to 6 million tonnes in 2025.

Vietnam has traditionally been a major buyer of corn imports from South America, with the development of Brazil and Argentina as major producers dovetailing with the rise of Vietnam as a major regional hub for protein exports.

But the trade was hit hard by two pandemics – the onset of African swine fever in 2018 that hit the world’s pork supply hard, before the arrival of Covid-19 at the end of the following year.

Russian invasion impacts grain prices

Since then, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has driven grain prices sharply higher amid fears of shortages, before bumper corn harvests in the US and Brazil, and record breaking wheat harvests in Australia and Russia, alleviated some of the pressure.

Nonetheless, Vietnam has seen imports rise from non-traditional regional importers, such as Pakistan, India and South Africa, while Brazilian imports have surged, edging out Argentina’s dominance in the country amid its own struggles with drought.

Alongside the increase in options for corn imports, the USDA also highlighted the rise of Brazil as an exporter of dried distillers grains (DDGS). These are corn-based animal feeds that are a by-product of ethanol production.

That reflects a rising tide of corn-based ethanol production in some of the South American country’s biggest corn-growing states. Brazil provided 17% of Vietnam’s total DDGS imports in 2023, up from nil in previous years, according to Vietnamese customs data.

The USDA is already calling for Vietnam’s corn imports to reach their third-highest level ever in the 2023-24 marketing year, with 10.3 million tonnes predicted to be imported, behind only 2020-21’s 13.5 million tonnes, and 2019-20’s 10.6 million tonnes.