Conquer the wilderness

(Baonghean) - Getting rich from farm economy is already difficult, sustainably developing a farm economic model that earns billions of dong on wasteland is even more difficult. That is to say, we can see the efforts of Mr. Phan Van Duong in Hamlet 4, Hung Dao Commune (Hung Nguyen) when he successfully conquered the wasteland...

The comprehensive livestock farm model of Mr. Phan Van Duong - Hamlet 4, Hung Dao Commune is located on Lac field, separate from the residential area. These days, he is hiring workers to build and renovate the facilities to put in new livestock herds, preparing to supply the market at the end of the year. He shared that to have a systematic farm model with a scale of over 4 hectares, he had to strain himself and go through a long journey. Previously, he and his family were attached to the pig farming profession, but due to the limited land fund, they could not develop. Realizing that Lac field was abandoned, unable to grow rice and other crops, he discussed with his family to do the subcontracting procedure of the commune to invest in livestock development. The dream of conquering the wild fields, combined with his parents' burning passion for livestock farming, has given him the strength to make a career.

Integrated livestock farm model of Mr. Phan Van Duong in hamlet 4, Hung Dao commune.

Starting from scratch, the capital accumulated in previous years was not worth much, so the renovation of the Lac field encountered many difficulties. He realized that to get rich, he had to have courage, something that no one had done before, only doing it alone would be valuable, and difficulties would pass if people were brave. He tried to mobilize hundreds of millions of dong in capital from friends and brothers, and borrowed from the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Hung Nguyen district branch... Fortunately, he received support and created all conditions from the locality and friends, so the difficulties were gradually resolved. He hired workers to dig, fill, and enclose the area with hundreds of manual labor days.

In the first years of building the farm, he raised nearly 100 pigs and 14 cows. However, when the epidemic broke out, people were worried about using contaminated food, which affected the farm's output. In the conditions of having to borrow a lot of capital, high interest rates, and taking 3-5 months, or even years to turn around capital, many difficulties arose. Since 2006, he boldly hired people to build industrial-style barns, hired people to dig and build solid fish ponds. He raised 10,000 laying ducks/year and 2,000 free-range chickens. Fish were raised in the pond to take advantage of waste from raising chickens and ducks. He also invested 200 million VND to buy an incubator to sell products to the market. This is the best and most suitable direction because it takes advantage of water resources, land, food, production practices and markets.

Thanks to focusing on investing in livestock farming in the right direction and flexibly applying the market, Mr. Phan Van Duong's integrated livestock farm model has now provided a stable income. According to his calculations, the flock of ducks lays about 900 eggs/night, the selling price of duck eggs after being incubated on the market is about 2.8 - 3 thousand VND/egg. On average, after deducting the cost of electricity, labor, and food, the profit is 5 million VND/day, each year he earns nearly 600 million VND/year from raising ducks (6 months of harvest). The average price of free-range chicken is about 100 thousand VND/kg, his flock harvests nearly 3 tons of chicken meat/year, after deducting the cost, the net profit is over 100 million VND/year. Commercial fish farming is also an advantage, with continuous harvests throughout the year, catching an average of 2 tons of fish meat/month, with the current selling price of 25,000 VND/kg, Mr. Duong has an income of not less than 50 million VND/month to cover farm expenses... From the results, it shows that his comprehensive farm brings in hundreds of millions of VND/year. This is a worthy effort for the farmers' determination to overcome difficulties, dare to think, dare to do. The model also creates jobs for many rural workers with stable salaries.

To achieve high efficiency in livestock farming, according to him, the important thing is how to reduce input costs, improve product quality to increase output value. After many years of working with the farm model, Mr. Duong has been self-sufficient in livestock breeding from egg products, not depending on the market. He also buys fish fry to raise into fry. Thanks to that, it is possible to reduce input costs in livestock farming, while controlling external disease factors. Farming in the delta districts has long been fraught with many potential risks of disease and high risks. In Mr. Duong's view, if livestock farming is to develop sustainably, it is necessary to strictly implement hygiene and disease prevention measures.

Currently, his farm has a veterinary engineer with a fairly high salary. Besides the above two factors, proactively searching for markets also contributes significantly to the development of livestock farming. Mr. Duong confided, "To gain an advantage and maintain the market for livestock farming, we must expand the consumption network. If the North is cheap, we will go to the South, if the South is not successful, we will bring products to Laos and Thailand for consumption, never be discouraged."

Those are the secrets that helped Mr. Phan Van Duong successfully realize his dream of getting rich from his farm.

Article and photos:Mai Luong