Facing adversity but not giving up, Tang Thi Hang from Bau Cam hamlet of An Long commune in Phu Giao district, with daring will, has overcome all difficulties to get rich, and become a billionaire farmer.
Overcoming poverty
Leading a life with empty hands, in difficulties and lack of everything, but the will and energy to escape poverty, she has plenty. This has helped Hang start a successful business and reap sweet ripe fruit. Recalling the old days, the years of hardship of the past rushed back to Hang's mind. Married in 1990, and getting together with empty hands, Hang and her husband started making a living by trading bottles. Hang said: “At that time, the economy was not as developed as it is now, and the family was poor, so it was very difficult to borrow money for business. At the end of the day, my husband and I couldn't bear to bring the dowry necklace of our parents for the day of marriage and sold it for money to buy bottles for reselling."
Tang Thi Hang's Yen Hieu Hang facility has a turnover of over VND 3 billion a year
After a period of wandering around every corner, and thanks to clever calculations for saving every penny, she opened a shop to buy bottles at home.
“Business work has its own advantages, difficulties and obstacles. In difficult times, my mind sometimes wanted to let go, but when I calmed down, I realized that no one can choose how they were born whether rich or poor, but we can make life better. Thinking like that, I keep on to work hard and hope for a brighter future," Hang confided.
Since the switching to buying bottles, her family's life has also been more favorable. In the afternoon, she also sold porridge to diners who are mainly her buyers of bottles. Even when she was a workaholic, she also took advantage of her time to ride a motorbike to households to buy chickens and pigs to rear and sell to small traders for extra money. “At that time, I always thought that I could do anything as long as I do it with my own efforts without breaking the law," Hang said.
As a result, her family's income has gradually improved, and her life has gradually become more stable. All of a sudden, more than 10 years of her work in buying and selling bottles have passed. In 2000, Ms. Hang realized that there was a new job to earn money with less effort than buying tins and bottles, which was opening a shop selling agricultural supplies. The locality is a specialized agricultural area, in which, rubber trees are planted the most, followed by fruit trees and crops. At that time, there were not many shops in the locality. After doing her own researches, she learned that to open a shop selling agricultural supplies, she should need an intermediate degree in agriculture and forestry. With great efforts, after 2 years of study, she graduated from agroforestry secondary school and in 2002 opened a shop selling agricultural supplies, fertilizers, plant protection drugs, and plant varieties.
Having experienced many difficulties and hardships, she sympathizes with farmers. Therefore, from the day she opened the agricultural supply store until now, Hang always sells at preferential prices to farmers and accepted low profit, installments, or in debt until farmers harvest new products to pay for the materials they have bought without any interest accrued. From doing business, her family accumulated money to purchase 10 hectares of tapping rubber trees. However, at that time, the low price of rubber latex did not bring high economic efficiency. In 2004-2006, with the policy of building the Phuoc Hoa dam system, 10 hectares of land for rubber plantations and her family's house were included in the planning and had to be cleared. With the main agricultural land area, the compensation price at that time was low, so it was difficult for her to rebuild agricultural production in a new place.
Billions of income
Being exposed to and hearing stories about the work of making a living, I learned more about Hang's determination to overcome the challenge of life that did not make her falter, but on the contrary, it helped her to forge a strong will to get out of the harsh situation. After receiving the compensation for plantation clearance and moving to a new place, her family continued to develop the agricultural supply store, bought land to re-develop the family's agricultural economy by renewing, relocating, and renovating rubber plantations to breeding, raising rabbits, ducks, sheep etc. and coming to the profession of raising swiftlets, selling bird's nests, which have brought her billions of VND of income.
Recalling the opportunity to raise swiftlets, Hang shared that once when a plant protection drug company organized a travel agency in Nha Trang, she was allowed to visit a facility that raised swiftlets and sold the bird's nest, inspiring the will to get rich in her. "After many years of trying to do business, the nature of business doing seeps into me without knowing when, anywhere that I find a good model or an effective way earn, I take it back home and apply to my family," Hang shared.
When she started working on the new business, everything was new to her, with no experience or knowledge of bird nesting techniques, how to attract swiftlets to nest. However, with great determination to do and make, she read books and newspapers, and then directly went to localities in provinces and cities to develop the profession to exchange and learn experience on how to build swiftlet houses. Hang, after researching and learning about the profession, she found that the local rich natural food source is very convenient for swiftlets. At the end of 2013, her family bought a low rated house and converted it into the first bird nest house.
After 3 years, the bird nest model started to give her yields. Seeing the effect, she continued to invest in building more bird nest houses; so far her family has 3 swiftlet houses on an area of 1,500 square meters for a yield of about 15kg of bird nest a month. With prices ranging from VND 20 to 22 million a kg, the establishment's revenue from raw bird's nests could possibly over VND 3 billion a year. Thanks to the development of swiftlet farming, her family has created stable jobs for 10 workers with an income of VND 15-18 million a person a month. Currently, the preliminary processing of products from her family's bird's nest have supporting machines and equipment, helping to improve product quality. In addition to raw bird's nest, her family's Yen Hieu Hang facility is promoting the processing of products from oats such as fresh oats, and bird's nest with cordyceps, oat tea, bird's nest porridge etc. for consumer health.
After many years of hard work, her family now has more than 10 hectares of land; in which, 7 hectares of rubber plantations are being tapped, and over 3 hectares are used to develop general husbandry models, raising swiftlets, raising rabbits, etc. in the wild rearing form with a turnover of more than VND 6 billion a year. Thanks to the support of local authorities and Farmers' Associations at all levels, in 2019, her family's bird nest product - Hieu Hang, attended and won the typical rural product award in Binh Duong. By 2021, Yen Hieu Hang's production facility received 3-star OCOP (one product per commune) certification at the provincial level, which is the highest level for a production facility. Currently, Hang is carrying out the procedures to convert the production facility and upgrade it to an enterprise or a cooperative to upgrade the OCOP to 4-5 stars, bringing Yen Hieu Hang's products not only to the domestic but also foreign market.
Reported by Do Trong – Translated by Vi Bao
