Turning wilderness into billion-dollar farms

With his efforts and daring to think and act, Mr. Ho Van Duong has turned the barren swamp in An Binh village, Thanh An commune, Cam Lo district into a prosperous farm with an annual revenue of over 12 billion VND. Mr. Duong's economic development model has created jobs for many local workers. He was voted "Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer of 2023".

Feed conveyor system in Mr. Duong's pig pen - Photo: LA

Visiting Mr. Duong’s farm, we were surprised by the rich property, which was arranged reasonably with a fish pond and a pig farm located among the shady coconut trees. Mr. Duong confided that no one had ever become rich from rice or potatoes. Therefore, if one wanted to get rich on their own homeland, one had to change the way of thinking and doing things.

But how to change the way of doing things was a difficult question that kept him pondering. And then, with his industrious nature, always looking for new things, in 2003, he discussed with his wife to write a request to rent a low-lying rice field of about 7 hectares located about 1 km from home to build a rice-fish model.

“In the early days of coming here to farm, everyone said my wife and I had problems because this was a barren, low-lying land, surrounded by weeds and reeds. I ignored them, I used all my capital, borrowed more from relatives to hire an excavator to build a dike around the rented area and completely built 6 rice fields combined with fish farming,” Mr. Duong said.

The ceremony to honor and award the title of 100 outstanding Vietnamese farmers in 2023; to honor 63 outstanding cooperatives nationwide was chaired by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union , in coordination with the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The 100 farmers honored are the most outstanding representatives among millions of outstanding farmers in the period of industrialization, modernization of agriculture, rural areas, and international integration, and are convincing examples of real people and real deeds in the community. 2023 is the first year that the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union organized to honor 63 outstanding cooperatives nationwide, established by the Farmers' Union through propaganda, mobilization, and guidance.

Mr. Duong said that surrounding the rice fields are ditches 6 - 8 m wide, 1 - 1.2 m deep, formed by digging up soil to build dikes, where he raises fish such as grass carp, silver carp, and tilapia. In the middle is a flat field where he grows rice. Before sowing rice, the water level will be lower than the field level so that the fish can go down to the ditches. When the rice is green and lush, the water level will be raised so that the fish can come up to the middle of the field to find food.

However, you have to calculate the appropriate time to raise the fish and use nets to prevent the grass carp from coming to the surface of the field. Because if the grass carp comes to the surface of the field, no rice plants will survive. After harvesting the rice, you continue to add water and wait for a while for the rice plants to regenerate before removing the nets to let the grass carp come to the surface of the field. At this time, the grass carp will eat all the regenerated rice plants and clean the field.

According to Mr. Duong, he only grows one crop of rice each year, and the remaining rice (regenerated rice) is used as food for fish. At the end of the year, he pulls the net to select the big ones to sell, and those that are not heavy enough are released for further farming. Not only that, in 2019, he also introduced giant freshwater prawn farming and built a model of intercropping giant freshwater prawn and fish combined with rice cultivation in a closed, circular, natural farming direction.

“Currently, giant freshwater prawns are purchased by traders at the field price of 350,000 VND/kg. Every year, I earn about 300 million VND from giant freshwater prawns and about 200-250 million VND from fish,” said Mr. Duong.

Not stopping there, with his industrious and studious nature, in 2010, Mr. Duong decided to invest nearly 1.7 billion VND to build a cold barn system for raising pigs with a scale of 1,000 - 1,100 pigs/batch in cooperation with CP Vietnam Livestock Joint Stock Company. With the technical support of the company, Mr. Duong's pig farm has an automatic cooling system and especially a food conveyor belt.

Instead of having to carry each bag of feed to each trough, at Mr. Duong's farm, workers only need to pour all the feed into the tank, the conveyor system will bring the feed to the trough. Mr. Duong said that every year he raises 2 batches of pigs, the weight of which is from 1.1 to 1.2 quintals/pig and the company buys all of them.

Turning wilderness into billion-dollar farms

Mr. Duong's farm is arranged reasonably and scientifically - Photo: LA

To ensure environmental hygiene, Mr. Duong also applies advanced manure filtration technology. Accordingly, the manure discharged from pigs is concentrated in 2 tanks with a volume of 15 m3/tank, then using a manure suction machine with a capacity of 20 m3/hour to filter the manure out of the water. The wastewater is fed into the Biogas tank as fuel to serve the daily needs of the farm. The solid manure of pigs after filtration is treated with lime powder and put into compost to be used as fertilizer for rice and as food for fish.

“Composted manure is used to fertilize rice, and at the same time creates a micro-plankton environment that serves as food for fish and shrimp. Fish and shrimp excrement is a source of nutrition for rice. Regenerated rice serves as food for fish and shrimp. Utilizing each other's food sources helps save costs in production,” Mr. Duong shared.

When asked about his experience in developing the family economy, Mr. Duong said that in addition to diligence and hard work, farmers need to change their thinking, boldly change crops and livestock, and introduce new varieties of crops and livestock into production. Another important factor is to know how to properly apply science and technology to bring about high economic efficiency.

Currently, Mr. Duong's farm maintains a stable 6 fields of intercropping giant freshwater prawns, fish and rice, selling more than 250 tons of pork every year. Starting from nothing but with his constant efforts, Mr. Duong has succeeded in raising livestock, growing crops, and getting rich on the land that was previously abandoned, with a revenue of more than 12 billion VND per year.

“The workload is so large that I have to hire 8 more regular workers with wages ranging from 7 to 9 million VND/person/month. In addition, this economic model also creates jobs for dozens of seasonal workers,” Mr. Duong added.

According to the Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Cam Lo District, Nguyen Van Viet, Mr. Duong's farm is large-scale, well-invested and professional, bringing high economic efficiency. Notably, not only enriching himself, Mr. Duong also actively participates with the Commune Farmers' Association to guide the branches to build a closed model in livestock and crop farming in the locality.

In addition, he also supports farmer members with seeds and loans to develop production together. Mr. Duong always accompanies the locality in the movement to help poor households, the local rural road construction program and the movements of the association, as well as local organizations.

In addition, Mr. Duong also supported hundreds of gifts, each worth 200,000 - 500,000 VND for poor households, students and disadvantaged students. With his efforts in economic development, Mr. Duong has received many certificates of merit from the Prime Minister, the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union, and the Provincial People's Committee.

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