On September 20, Dong Nai Department of Natural Resources and Environment sent a document to four foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) requiring them to temporarily suspend their outsourcing contracts with 328 farms that have yet to complete the necessary environmental procedures.

The department, in coordination with other local authorities, is inspecting the environmental protection compliance at nearly 10,000 livestock and poultry breeding farms in the southern province.

After four months of inspections, they discovered 328 pig and chicken farms that have outsourcing contracts with four FIEs. However, the firms are yet to have their environmental procedures approved. The affected FIEs include C.P. Vietnam, Japfa Comfeed Vietnam, CJ Vina Agri, and Sunjin Vina.

Of these, CJ Vina Argi has the most farming contracts with 250, followed by C.P. Vietnam with 46, Sunjin Vina with 19, and Japfa Comfeed Vietnam with 13.

Dong Nai Department of Natural Resources and Environment has requested that the FIEs temporarily suspend livestock outsourcing at these farms.

The farms in question will be able to return to breeding if they supplement their environmental procedures and are granted a licence to confirm their environmental compliance.

Moreover, the department asked the four FIEs to coordinate with the local authorities to review the legal regulations on environmental conditions for livestock farming. If farms do not meet the required standards for licensing, outsourcing contracts will be shut down.

Dong Nai is considered the country's farming region, with a total herd of more than 2.5 million pigs and a chicken population of more than 26 million. There are nearly 1,500 large facilities and more than 22,200 small-scale farms.