Success from a new approach

After graduating with a fisheries engineering degree from Ho Chi Minh City University of Agriculture and Forestry, Mr. Tuan started trading aqua feeds and medicines, producing and supplying shrimp seeds. His desire to make money from the advantages of Tan Phu Dong prompted him to invest in shrimp farming.

At first, he farmed shrimps in traditional ways. Due to limited finance, he rented about 2 ha of land for shrimp farming and gradually expanded the farming area. However, seeing high prospects of high-tech shrimp farming, he learned farming techniques. He experienced a turning point in 2015. He boldly hired land to dig ponds and experimented with new farming methods. He applied professional knowledge and techniques learned from his study trips to hi-tech shrimp farming and got good rewards for this. After the output increased, he directly formed a seed to feed cooperation with C.P Vietnam Livestock Joint Stock Company.

Entrepreneur Ngo Minh Tuan said, “High-tech shrimp farming does not depend on seasons. Shrimps are raised around the year. Each hectare is harvested 45 - 50 tons of shrimp, about 2 times higher than the output in traditional farming methods. The most successful model is the survival rate of 90%. Bigger shrimps make more profit. Almost all hi-tech shrimp farmers are making more money than traditional ones. High-tech shrimp farming is very risky. Traditional farming is sometimes fruitless.”

After being successful in high-tech shrimp farming, he pooled capital to buy more land to expand farming scale. Up to now, he has five hi-tech shrimp farms covering 32ha in Phu Thanh, Phu Dong and Phu Tan communes. After nearly seven years of culturing vannamei (white-leg shrimp), this advanced shrimp farming model is over 40% profitable. The output of high-tech farming set a record of 14.2 heads per kilogram on average, recognized by C.P Vietnam Livestock Joint Stock Company.

Supporting native people

As an experienced fisheries engineer, Tuan realized that only high-tech shrimp farming can help island farmers change their livelihoods, but it is not easy to be successful because it takes time to get familiar with breeding techniques in addition to financial viability. Therefore, Tuan Hien Aquaculture Co., Ltd. has actively supported and transferred technology for people to scale up this model to make money together. Accordingly, it has managed to expand this model to 200 high-tech farming ponds across the province (as in Tan Phu Dong and Go Cong Dong districts). The company also provides seeds, feeds and medicines for farmers and sends engineers to support them in building ponds and adopting new techniques.

He added that, “The most important factors for successful high-tech shrimp farming are good processes, good seeds, clean water, qualified oxygen, well-checked environment and specially farming techniques. High-tech shrimp farming model has been much more improved than traditional extensive farming, which starts with tarpaulin-covered and roof-shaded ponds. Currently, the most modern model which is being applied is farming in round ponds whose bottoms are covered with canvas and roofs are covered. For this model, 20% of pond area is for building shrimp ponds, concrete walls and tarpaulin-covered bottom and the remaining 80% of the area is used for treating input and output water. On average, each hectare needs VND1.5 billion of investment capital for this farming process.

In addition to high-tech shrimp farming, Tuan Hien Aquaculture Co., Ltd trades shrimp feeds, medicines and supplies for local people, supplied by many shops in Phu Thanh and Phu Tan. Last but not least, the company is also very active in social security by supporting the poor and disadvantaged to build houses and funding COVID-19 prevention campaigns.