Bankrupt because of raising mink

(Baonghean) -Visiting Tru Son commune, Do Luong district in recent days, we could not help but feel bitter about the situation of farmers. Many families participating in the Doan Viet Chau black mink farming model are sitting on hot coals. The mink have been overdue for sale for more than 4 months now, but Mr. Chau has not sent anyone to buy them.

Following the introduction of the locals, we went to Mr. Phan Van Hoa's house in hamlet 12, the household that raises the most mink in the commune. Mr. Hoa was unloading straw to sell. When we asked about raising mink, he wiped the sweat rolling down his cheeks and said: "I thought I would get rich thanks to mink, but it turns out I went bankrupt because of mink. I sold my buffalo to buy mink. Now that I don't have buffalo, I'll sell my straw too." He went into the house and took out all the company's introductory tapes, mink-raising instructions, and signed contracts for us to see, then continued: "Mr. Choi (Mr. Nguyen Van Choi - representative of the model in the Central region) is an acquaintance, who would have thought... But when I watched TV, in the program "Farmers get rich", people also praised this farming, so I didn't hesitate to sell my buffalo and borrow money from the bank to invest." Mr. Hoa registered to buy 20 pairs of breeding mink, each pair cost 4 million VND, a total of 80 million VND. Because it was an "acquaintance", he only paid 50 million VND in advance, the remaining 30 million VND will be deducted gradually when selling the baby mink.

According to the contract, Mr. Chau will buy baby mink from 4.6 to 4.7 taels for 1 million VND/mink. Every litter of mink, how many mink are born or how many die, must be reported to the representative to manage the quantity. Any household that sells baby mink to the market will have their contract terminated. Realizing that raising mink is not too hard, mink reproduces very quickly, each year the mother mink can give birth to 4 to 5 litters, each litter can have up to 6 to 7 mink, calculating that in less than 1 year, the capital is enough. Black mink has become the hope of changing the lives of many poor households.

The black mink farming model used to be Mr. Hoa's dream of getting rich.



Livestock farming contracts are ambiguous, only signed without stamp.

Thanks to his diligence, hard work, and willingness to learn, Mr. Hoa mastered the techniques so that the civet herd grew healthily. Before Tet, his family exported two litters of civets, and after deducting the transportation fee, they earned 19 million VND. Since then, for more than 4 months, he has not been able to sell any more civets. Thus, his family is losing 31 million VND. Currently, his family has about 150 commercial civets, but when calling Mr. Chau on the regular phone number, there is no signal. Selling them on the market is only 150 - 200 thousand VND/civet, so it is a big loss. For a long time, the two acres of garden land have not been able to grow anything other than milkweed to feed the civets. The family's income now depends only on 4 acres of contracted land. But there are no buffaloes to plow the fields. The family's economy has fallen into a serious deadlock. His wife is crying, depressed, and is planning to go work as a maid in Saigon. She said with tears in her eyes: "Working as a maid can earn a few million dong a month, but staying at home will starve to death, with mounting debt, children's education, and bank interest coming up at a dizzying rate."

Not to the point of being "dizzy" because of the weasels, but Mr. Nguyen Huu Ba in Hamlet 7 (Tru Son Commune, Do Luong) is also crying and laughing. He has raised the weasels for 5 months but has not sold any of them. The money spent on buying corn bran and the effort spent on taking care of them day and night have all been in vain. Mr. Ba and 4 other households in the commune are brothers and relatives of Mr. Nguyen Van Choi, so they received support for the weasels. Mr. Ba adopted 5 pairs of weasels for breeding without having to pay any money, waiting until the weasels are sold to pay gradually. All the excitement and hope have now vanished, replaced by a shake of the head in disappointment and frustration when we asked about the weasels.

Currently, in Tru Son commune, there are 8 households participating in the "Doan Viet Chau Black Mink Breeding Model". However, this model is not part of the local socio-economic development policy but is based on the relationship between households and the "project" owner and then signed a contract. After the press exposed the multi-level marketing scheme, knowing that they were "cheated", mink breeders still waited and hoped to get their capital back. They waited forever but still had no news.

According to Mr. Hoa, he called Mr. Choi but only received a cool answer: "Look for Mr. Chau and ask." Mr. Hoa took a bus to Vinh City, met Mr. Nguyen Van Choi at 58, Dinh Van Chat Street, Dong Vinh Ward, and asked Mr. Choi to help him contact Mr. Chau to talk. On April 2, Mr. Hoa and two other mink farmers, Dang Van Toan and Nguyen Thi Xuan, went to Hanoi as Mr. Chau had promised. Mr. Hoa added: "When I got there, I realized that many people from the North and the South were also cheated, even officials, workers and employees, not just farmers. For them, tens of millions of dong is normal, but for farmers, it is a fortune."

Mr. Doan Viet Chau explained that the reason for not coming to buy the mink on time was due to the impact of the global and domestic economic crisis, which caused his business to face some difficulties. Mr. Chau promised to buy all the mink that the people had at 500,000 VND/mink (half the price stated in the contract), as a way to help each other in difficult times. Most of the people who came here agreed with that solution, because they only needed to get their capital back and were no longer interested in the mink. Mr. Hoa also explained his poor situation, selling his buffalo to buy the mink, now that the harvest season was coming, he had no buffalo to plow, so he asked Mr. Chau to advance him 20 million VND to buy the buffalo. Mr. Chau agreed and promised to send the money back next week, because he did not have cash at the moment. However, it has been almost a month since the day he met Mr. Chau and no one has come to buy the mink. The dream of getting rich has now gone up in smoke.

Before parting, Mr. Hoa firmly stated: "If Mr. Chau does not return the capital, we will file a lawsuit!" But how long will we have to wait?

Article and photos: Nguyen Le