Farmers in Nghe An province are making big profits from hatching eel eggs and selling eel fry.

After working various jobs to make a living, including working abroad in England, and with a small amount of capital, Mr. Luong decided to return to his hometown to start his own business. He chose commercial eel farming as his startup model.

“Eel is a famous specialty of Yen Thanh; when people talk about eels from Nghe An, they immediately think of Yen Thanh. Therefore, I chose eel farming to develop my livelihood,” Mr. Luong said. He invested all his savings and borrowed an additional 6 billion VND to open an eel farm.

Having been involved in farming since childhood, setting traps and fishing for eels, Mr. Luong understands the characteristics of eels very well. Furthermore, to equip himself with the knowledge and techniques for commercial eel farming, he readily sought out mentors, learning from experienced farmers in his village and commune, and researching mudless eel farming models in the province.

He also spent money to go to the South and work for large eel farms to learn more. Once he had grasped the basics of eel farming, he spent 300 million VND to receive technology transfer from a reputable farm and bought eel fry from the South to raise.

However, buying eel fry from the South for breeding is risky due to differences in environment and temperature, and also involves long-distance transportation and high costs. Therefore, Mr. Luong had the bold idea of ​​hatching eel eggs into fry, saving on breeding costs and supplying eel fry to the people.

In his first attempt, he imported hundreds of thousands of eel eggs using a method he learned in the South: placing the eggs in buckets or basins and aerating them with oxygen to hatch the eels. However, it was a complete failure; the eggs spoiled and the eels died.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," he pondered, searching for the cause and thinking of ways to overcome it. After many attempts, he concluded that the cause of the loss during eel egg incubation was due to environmental factors and water quality; therefore, the first thing to do was to properly address these two issues.

He tinkered with building an eel egg incubator. After dozens of trials and adjustments, the eel egg incubator was born. With its multi-chamber design and the principle of water circulation to create oxygen, the incubator keeps the eggs moving and prevents them from sticking together.

When the eggs hatch, the baby eels are separated through a slot to reach a separate chamber, while the unhatched eggs are left to continue incubation. In addition, the machine has a heating system that effectively addresses temperature issues in winter, preventing the hatched eels from experiencing "cold shock". With this eel incubator, the hatching rate of eel eggs reaches 80%.

To reduce costs, he also experimented with ways to collect eel eggs instead of importing them as before. Accordingly, he paired male and female eels together, increasing the chances of fertilizing the eggs.

"In the near future, I'm looking for ways to artificially inseminate eels. If successful, it will reduce the cost of eel fry, helping eel farmers earn higher profits," he shared.

Not stopping there, Mr. Luong boldly crossbred Southern eel parent stock with native freshwater eels, both increasing production and improving the adaptability of the young eels to the environment, ensuring the eel meat is firmer, tastier, and more flavorful.

Currently, the farm produces 200,000-300,000 eel fry annually, generating approximately 800 million VND in revenue and a net profit of around 400 million VND. Simultaneously, it provides stable employment for many local workers and supplies high-quality eel fry at reasonable prices to people in the region.