Strange: Every day, fish are fed with... 1 ton of expired dumplings

The day we arrived at the fish farm, Mr. Tu “fish” was busy carrying a pile of dumplings he had just taken from the food factory into the warehouse. He said that every day he had to buy more than 1 ton of expired dumplings to feed nearly 70,000 catfish.

Have the guts to get rich

Mr. Tu "fish" and the new catfish raised with dumplings.

Before raising catfish, Mr. Tu “ca” worked as a garbage collector with a whole team specializing in collecting garbage in the commune. However, there was a lot of garbage but people paid little. Out of 10 people, only 5 were happy to pay for garbage.

Disappointed with his job as a garbage collector, Mr. Tu “ca” suddenly thought of renting vacant land to dig a pond to raise catfish. On the day he received the reclaimed land, some people who knew the story said he was crazy. “They said I was crazy to spend money to rent vacant land and then dig a pond to raise fish,” he confided.

Despite the world's ridicule, he immediately spent 250 million VND to rent a Kobe machine to uproot trees and dig a pond. After 2 months of hard work, Mr. Tu and his wife finally turned a corner of the wild forest into a 2,000m2 pond. Taking advantage of the victory, he dug 4 more ponds, turning the wasteland full of wild grass and weeds into a 3ha fish farm.

Normally, farmers like to do business according to the motto "slow and steady", but Mr. Tu "ca" is completely different. He dumped tens of thousands of catfish fry into the pond at once. "I always think that if you don't do farming, then don't do it. If you do it, you have to do it methodically and thoroughly to win. For example, raising catfish requires a lot of stock to turn it around. Many farmers only raise 10,000 - 20,000 fish, so it's hard to get rich," he shared.

Mr. Tu “ca” said that he is currently raising more than 60,000 pangasius fish using a rolling process. After harvesting the fish and cleaning the pond, the fish from the nursery pond will be transferred to the next pond and raised again. This production cycle continues continuously from year to year.

Even Mr. Tu “ca”’s use of dumplings to feed catfish is a unique initiative in the catfish farming village. Some fish farmers also said: “People who eat dumplings get fat, let alone fish” because dumplings contain many nutrients from quail eggs, chicken eggs, minced meat, etc.

“At first, when they saw me feeding fish dumplings, some fish farmers said I shouldn’t because the fish would die. But I kept doing it my way. For the past 4-5 years, since I started raising catfish, I have never lost a single crop,” Mr. Tu “ca” said with a smile.

Who criticizes, I do

When it comes to raising pangasius, many people immediately think of raising pangasius for export. In fact, many people have chosen to raise pangasius in this direction and there are quite a few farmers who choose to invest in producing pangasius for sale domestically. But for Mr. Tu "fish", whoever criticizes, he will do it. Since then, he has been passionate about raising pangasius for sale domestically. On average, each year he harvests more than 50 tons of pangasius, after deducting costs, Mr. Tu "fish" still makes a profit of more than 500 million VND.

Mr. Tu "ca" is becoming a good local farmer.

“Many farmers focus on raising pangasius for export, so the domestic market for pangasius is very large. That’s why I decided to invest in raising pangasius to serve the domestic market. Currently, I don’t have enough fish to sell. Traders come to the pond to pull the fish, weigh them, and load them onto the truck. I just have to take the money for the fish,” Mr. Tu happily boasted.

According to Mr. Tu "ca", raising pangasius in this way only requires the market price to be 14,000 VND/kg for the farmer to make a profit. However, recently, domestic commercial pangasius has been priced at more than 20,000 VND/kg. Mr. Tu "ca" boasts that since raising pangasius, his family's life has been "3 sinking, 7 floating". The profit from pangasius brought in each year has further confirmed his nickname Tu "ca".

Recently, by chance, I met Mr. Tu "ca" and a group of farmers from Ho Chi Minh City who went to learn about the agricultural model in Khanh Hoa. He said that he was studying and learning about the experience of growing clean vegetables using a high-tech model. "I see that the output of clean vegetables is also good. I am planning to gradually switch to that. Raising fish and growing vegetables is also fine" - he confided.