35 years of forming high-quality cattle herd: Sustaining successes

Cattle crossbreeding in the province’s west

In 2025, the newly formed Gia Lai province consumed only 17,000 doses of cattle semen, while in previous years, the former Binh Dinh province used between 100,000 and 120,000 doses annually. This reality shows that the crossbreeding program in eastern Gia Lai (formerly Binh Dinh territory) is no longer as strong and dynamic as it was before.

According to Dr. Phan Trong Ho, Chairman of the Gia Lai Animal Health & Production Association, to prevent the early achievements from fading, provincial authorities need to continue developing a high-quality beef cattle program. This includes focusing on building value chains, strengthening households and farms raising high-quality beef cattle, and especially forming close linkages among cooperatives, purchasing enterprises, scientists, and farmers. Only with these connections can the province’s high-quality beef herd continue to grow sustainably.

Dr. Ho emphasized that during the first 2 to 3 years of implementation, the State must provide financial support for enterprises to establish these value chains. Once these chains operate stably, the support can gradually be withdrawn. In this way, the value brought by cattle farming will increase, farmers can secure stable incomes, and rural communities will have more employment opportunities.

Dr. Ho also highlighted another major issue: in the near future, Gia Lai needs to invest in the crossbreeding program in the province's western region. However, high-quality beef cattle from eastern Gia Lai cannot be directly crossbred with the local indigenous cows in the west, as such attempts would fail immediately. A proper process must be followed, starting with improving the foundation cow herd in western Gia Lai to ensure local cows are physically capable of delivering heavier crossbred calves.

“Currently, crossbred cattle account for only 40% of the total herd in western Gia Lai, but there has been no detailed assessment of how many of these crossbred cattle belong to household farms, how many belong to enterprises, and especially whether these crossbred cows have 50% or 75% exotic blood. For crossbreeding to succeed, foundation cows must have at least 70% exotic blood”, Dr. Ho cautioned.

A foundation herd with over 70% exotic blood is required

Dr. Ho proposed that, in the coming years, the provincial livestock sector should focus on improving the cattle in western Gia Lai to produce foundation cows with 75% exotic blood. These selected foundation cows would then be inseminated with semen from already established crossbred bulls to create the next generation of high-quality beef cattle.

“To ensure success, authorities must investigate the local cattle population thoroughly. Absolutely do not inseminate BBB or Droughmaster semen into indigenous local cows, this would lead to failure and direct losses for farmers, as local cows cannot give birth to large crossbred calves”, Dr. Ho said.

He added that in previous years, Binh Dinh authorities had strictly instructed localities not to inseminate cows with only 50% exotic blood. Doing so would harm farmers, as foundation cows must have at least 75% exotic blood before they can be successfully inseminated. In reality, foundation cows with only 50% exotic blood were already unable to give birth to crossbred calves from BBB or Droughmaster sires, so indigenous cows could certainly not handle calves with such heavy birth weights.

Dr. Ho further stated that Gia Lai should develop a unified high-quality beef cattle program but implement it in two separate phases corresponding to the eastern and western regions. The most essential factor is that the State must issue supportive policies. Compared to crop farming, assistance for cattle farming yields much faster and higher returns, because the profit margins of animal husbandry are significantly greater.

“In the previous crossbreeding and high-quality beef cattle development projects in Binh Dinh, we calculated that profit from cattle farming was 50 to 100 times higher than that of crop farming in terms of added value. The program also created rural employment and allowed farmers to make full use of agricultural by-products”, he said.

Dr. Ho also assessed that western Gia Lai has many favorable conditions for developing high-quality beef cattle, thanks to its cool climate and suitable ecological conditions for cattle raising. The region also possesses large areas for growing grass and producing fodder. The only major shortcoming is the shortage of insemination technicians, which the province must urgently address through targeted training.

“Training insemination technicians means building an essential profession for the community. Any locality that wants to develop its cattle industry sustainably must have a strong team of insemination technicians”, Dr. Phan Trong Ho affirmed.