The idea of ​​building a satellite farm of the border boss

The largest pig farm in the border commune of Mon Son (Con Cuong) of Mr. Tran Dinh Ngoc. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Born and raised in a border communeMon Son (Con Cuong)Since childhood, Tran Dinh Ngoc has dreamed of getting rich right on his homeland, both to support his family and to develop the economy for the villagers. After accumulating more capital from the construction industry, and being left a large garden area by his parents, Ngoc discussed with his wife, Vi Thi La, to build a pig farm.

With nearly 20 years of hard work, saving and borrowing from friends and relatives, he invested in building two industrial pig farms; buying piglets, feed, etc. with a total capital of nearly 2.5 billion VND. “Unlike small-scale farming, if wholesale is not possible, then retail, slaughter and sell meat. But with a scale of five to seven hundred pigs, if the pigs do not sell well, there will only be losses and debt.”

Bathing pigs, cleaning barns, drinking water and feeding pigs are all automated. Photo: Thanh Phuc

And not beyond his expectations, when he started raising pigs, the price of feed skyrocketed, while the pigs had reached the right weight but could not be sold due to the sluggish market.

“The longer I keep it, the more I lose because every day 600 pigs “eat” tens of millions of dong in food. In the end, I had to “sell” the whole flock to a trader for 300 million dong, losing 1.2 billion dong,” said Mr. Ngoc. To have money to pay off the debt, he returned to his previous construction job to earn money to pay off the debt. However, he still had the intention of returning to pig farming. In 2019, whenpig marketflourished, he decided to return to the economy from pig farming.

Mr. Ngoc invested hundreds of millions of dong to buy 4 pigs like his grandparents. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Learning from his first failure, this time he invested in an automated system for feeding, bathing and cleaning the barn, thereby saving labor and reducing labor costs. According to his calculations, the total time spent taking care of his and his wife's herd of nearly 400 pigs is only 5-6 hours/day.

Presentlylivestock farmMr. Ngoc's pig farm operates in a closed process, from the source of piglets to the sale of pork. He has invested in 4 grandparent pigs and 42 sows. In addition to proactively sourcing piglets for "inter-crop" farming, better disease management, he also reduces input costs, ensuring profitable farming. Thanks to that, in a time when pig prices are unstable and feed prices are high, he still earns 300-500 million VND/batch from selling 2 litters of pigs each year. In years when pig prices are good, he "pockets" 600-700 million VND.

According to Mr. Ngoc, proactively using disease-free breeds accounts for 50% of success in livestock farming. Photo: Thanh Phuc

From his own success, the owner of this border pig farm is planning to expand the scale of the farm, increasing the total herd to 700-800 pigs and 100 sows.

In addition, he also plans to build satellite farm models for households with livestock raising conditions and the will to get rich in the locality to participate. Accordingly, he will support, provide breeding animals; provide technical guidance and purchase pigs for people.

Mr. Ngoc also proposed to the local government to build satellite farms, he subsidized the price of breeding animals and provided technical guidance to the people. At the same time, he created a link in the consumption of pork products for sale. Photo: Thanh Phuc

“With this model, firstly, it creates conditions for people to develop livestock farming and increase income; secondly, it creates links in livestock farming to reduce input costs when jointly purchasing feed and veterinary supplies; creating stable output, avoiding traders forcing down prices. If the scale is large and the quantity is guaranteed, exporting pigs to neighboring markets is very promising,” said Mr. Ngoc.