If you are buying or financing a pig farm in Vietnam, the question is simple: is the farm you are paying for the farm that actually exists? Due diligence on a pig farm means checking four things on site, not on paper: the herd and its records, biosecurity and ASF risk, the buildings and their true capacity, and the management and cost of production. Each one can move the value of the deal. Each one is easy to dress up in a sales pack and hard to hide in the barn.
I have spent more than 20 years running commercial pig farms in the UK, the USA, Ireland and Russia, from a 1,200 to 1,500-sow farrow-to-finish business to a 6,000-sow multi-site operation. Here is what I look at, and why.
Why paper is not enough
A vendor’s information pack, a business plan or a bank application tells you what the farm is supposed to produce. It rarely tells you what it does produce, week in, week out. The numbers that matter are made in the farrowing house, the service barn and the finishing pens. You only see them by walking the site, opening the records and talking to the people who do the work.
That is the gap a farm audit closes. It is not a legal or permit check, and it should not replace one. It is a production check: can this unit deliver the pigs, the kilos and the margin the deal assumes?
1. The herd and the records
Start with the sows. Count them, or at least sample enough pens to test the inventory. Then compare what you see with what the records say.
- Pigs weaned per sow per year (PSY). Ask for it by week or by month, not as a single annual figure. A steady trend means something. A headline number with no history behind it means very little.
- Mortality by stage. Pre-weaning, nursery and finishing losses should each be recorded. If losses only appear as one total, or not at all, assume the real figure is worse.
- Feed conversion (FCR) and days on feed. These drive cost of production more than almost anything else. Check them against feed deliveries and pigs sold, not just the farm’s own spreadsheet.
- Parity profile and replacement rate. A herd with too many old sows, or one replacing gilts too slowly, is storing up a fall in output.
- Sales records. Total kilos sold and kilos sold per sow show what actually left the farm. Kilos sold per square metre of production space is one of the best single measures of whether the buildings are being used well.
Good records are not proof of a good farm, but missing or inconsistent records are a warning. When the records cannot be reconciled with feed in and pigs out, the risk rating goes up.
2. Biosecurity and ASF risk
For any investor in Vietnam or China, African swine fever is the risk that can wipe out the asset, not just reduce the return. I have worked on active sites in Russia where ASF biosecurity was part of daily management, so this is where I spend the most time on an audit.
What I check:
- The perimeter. Is there a real fence, one entry point and a clear line between clean and dirty areas? Or can people, vehicles and animals walk in from several sides?
- Vehicles and deliveries. Where do feed lorries, pig lorries and dead-stock collection go? Do any of them come close to the pig buildings?
- People. Showers or a change of clothes and boots at entry, and whether staff actually use them. A shower room with dry floors and no towels tells its own story.
- Feed, water and materials. Where feed is stored, how it is protected, and what else comes onto the site.
- Neighbours. Other pig farms, backyard pigs, slaughter points and roads used by pig traffic nearby.
- Disease history. What the farm has had, when, and how it was handled. Vaccine and medication spend is often a good guide to the health status the records do not mention.
Biosecurity on paper is easy. Biosecurity at 5 a.m. on a wet day, when the feed lorry is late, is what keeps a farm alive. I rate it on what I see happening, not on the written procedures.
3. Facilities and true capacity
The design capacity of a farm and its working capacity are not the same thing. A unit built for a certain number of sows may not have enough farrowing places, nursery space or finishing pens to carry that herd through to sale weight. When one stage is short of space, pigs are moved too early, stocked too tight, or sold light. All of that shows up in mortality, FCR and price.
On site I look at:
- Farrowing places against the number of sows served each week.
- Nursery and finishing space against the pigs those sows should produce.
- Ventilation, cooling and heating, and whether they work in the hottest and coldest weeks, not just on the day of the visit.
- Feed and water systems, including silos, lines and drinkers. Small faults here cost money every day for years.
- Slurry and effluent handling, and whether it can cope with the planned herd size.
- The condition of the buildings and the equipment, and what will need replacing in the next few years.
The aim is a straight answer to one question: how many pigs, at what weight, can this farm really sell each year with the buildings it has today?
4. Management and cost of production
The same buildings and the same genetics can give very different results under different managers. When a farm changes hands, or when new money comes in, the people running it matter as much as the concrete.
- The team. Who makes decisions on the farm, how experienced they are, and whether they will stay after the deal.
- Routines. Heat detection, service, farrowing supervision, weaning and hospital pens. These are visible in a walk-through if you know what to look for.
- Cost of production. Feed, medication, labour, energy and supply contracts. Feed is usually the biggest line, so feed price and FCR together decide most of the margin.
- Where the money could be saved. In one Irish multi-site operation I managed, we cut vaccine and medication spend by 25%. Savings like that come from understanding why the pigs need treatment, not from cheaper products.
A farm with average buildings and a strong team is often a better investment than a new farm with no one who knows how to run it.
What a good audit report gives you
An audit should end with something you can use in a credit committee or a negotiation, not a vague opinion. My audits take about two days on site, followed by a written report with risk ratings for each area: herd and records, biosecurity and ASF, facilities and capacity, management and cost of production.
The report goes only to the client who commissions it. Audit and due diligence work is commission-free: I take no payment from feed, genetics or equipment suppliers on it, so the findings are independent. Legal and permit checks are not covered and need a separate adviser.
When to commission one
- Before you sign to buy a farm, or to buy into one.
- Before a bank or fund lends against a farm or an expansion.
- When a farm you have already financed is not hitting the numbers in its plan, or you need to check it is meeting the conditions of the loan (see loan compliance audits for banks and lenders).
- Before a greenfield project moves from design to construction.
The earlier the check, the more it is worth. Problems found before the money moves can be priced in, fixed as a condition of the deal, or walked away from.
Next step
You can read more about how I work on the independent pig farm audit and due diligence page. If you are looking at a farm in Vietnam or China and want a second pair of eyes before you commit, get in touch through the contact section and book a 15-minute call. We can talk through the farm and what a visit would cover.