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 team that specialized in collecting garbage in the commune. However, there was a lot of garbage but people paid little. Out of 10 people, only 5 people were happy to pay for garbage.

Disappointed with the job of collecting trash for pennies, Mr. Tu “ca” suddenly thought of renting wasteland to dig a pond to raise catfish. When 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 wasteland 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 wild land full of 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 that's 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…

“At first, when some fish farmers saw me feeding fish dumplings, they told me not to do it 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 criticize, 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 production of pangasius farming for sale domestically. But for Mr. Tu "fish", whoever criticizes, he does 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, minus expenses, Mr. Tu "fish" still makes a profit of more than 500 million VND.

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

“Many farmers focus on raising tra fish for export, so the domestic market for tra fish is very large. That is why I decided to invest in raising tra fish to serve the domestic market. Currently, I do not raise 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 catfish 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 catfish has been priced at more than 20,000 VND/kg. Mr. Tu "ca" boasted that since raising catfish, his family's life has been "3 sinks, 7 floats". The profit from catfish brought in each year has firmly affirmed 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.