The farmer finished 7th grade and invented hundreds of machines, 15 countries ordered them.
"Barefoot" inventor Pham Van Hat (Tu Ky district, Hai Duong province) has never attended any formal training course in engineering or machine manufacturing.
This man's greatest asset is his understanding of the pain of farmers with muddy hands and feet and his love for mechanics that "bloomed late" during the years of traveling on a farm vehicle.
After finishing 7th grade, Pham Van Hat had to drop out of school to help his family with farming.
After many years of working in all kinds of jobs, in 2006-2010, Mr. Hat took a risk and spent all his savings to build a safe organic vegetable farm.
The lush, pesticide-free vegetable bushes inside the greenhouse, strange to the countryside at that time, aroused curiosity and attracted many local leaders to visit.
Joy is short-lived.
The safe vegetable fields brought his family to the brink of danger when he could not recover the capital. He went bankrupt with a debt of 4 billion VND on his head.
"A bunch of vegetables sprayed with pesticides is both cheap and beautiful, a bunch of clean vegetables is both expensive and full of holes, who would buy it?", the farmer bitterly realized when each truck of clean vegetables had to be dumped because they didn't sell.
In desperation, the man decided to borrow 200 million VND everywhere to go work abroad in Israel, where he happened to know that agriculture was very developed.
"I had to go there to see how they found out my stupidity," Mr. Hat explained.
In Israel, he saw a paradox: Behind the glitz of modern agricultural machinery and advanced farming techniques, farmers still had to do many steps manually, typically spreading fertilizer on fields of hundreds of hectares.
At this time he realized that farmers everywhere have the same hard life.
With a passion for tinkering and little experience, he boldly proposed to his boss to create a machine that would save labor. Although surprised by the proposal of an ordinary worker who did not speak a foreign language, his boss still agreed and paid for the components for him to assemble.
After only 4 days, the first fertilizer spreader was born to everyone’s amazement. However, there were still many shortcomings. Not satisfied, Mr. Hat continued to improve it a second time, a third time…
And finally, in front of dozens of people in the field, the Vietnamese farmer's fertilizer spreader ran smoothly. Many of the boss's friends were invited to watch. They all praised him and patted his head, saying that Vietnamese and Israelis are the same.
The boss immediately bought the copyright of the machine and increased Mr. Hat's salary and bonus to 50 million VND/month. A dream number for any export worker.
While on the path to success in a foreign land, Mr. Hat made a surprising decision: to return to Vietnam.
"Working for hire cannot make you rich. If you want to be rich, you have to be your own boss, and you have to be rich and your own boss in your own homeland," he thought.
The room surrounded by corrugated iron filled with all kinds of components collected from all kinds of industries: gears, conveyor belts, cylinders... is the "invention workshop" of barefoot inventor Pham Van Hat.
No drawings, no computers, no assembly lines, Mr. Hat just tinkered with welding, cutting, drilling, turning... realizing his ideas as if they were pre-programmed in his head.
This "invention workshop" right next to the rice fields is where agricultural machines are created, causing many foreign companies to "line up" to order. But it was also here nearly ten years ago that Pham Van Hat "covered his ears and locked the door" to avoid criticism and immersed himself in his passion for invention.
"After only being gone for a year, my debt not yet paid, my return surprised and filled my family and neighbors with doubt," Mr. Hat began his reminiscence.
With his passion for manufacturing and the confidence of having his first product before, he used a ten-square-meter plot of land next to his house to create his own invention workshop. Every day he locked himself in there to explore and research, whatever people ordered, he would create.
"If the debt is not paid yet, what's the point of making porridge?", Mr. Hat recalled the frequent arguments between the couple at that time, expressing understanding for his partner's worries in difficult circumstances.
One time, when passing through a carrot growing area, he saw dozens of people working hard just to sow seeds.
The image of a farmer bending over the ground at noon with the sun overhead to sow each seed made him feel anxious.
"Because I have failed in the fields, I understand that suffering and it has motivated me to create a seed sowing machine to help people increase productivity, reduce costs and keep up with the season," Mr. Hat shared.
I think let's get started right away.
Without a blueprint, I had to disassemble and reassemble everything I made a mistake. Mr. Hat described: "When I started working, I started "programming" in my head, trying to figure out what to put where so the machine would run."
He still had debt, but Mr. Hat burned every penny he had to buy machine parts. There were days when he drove his motorbike to Hanoi three times to buy parts, just for each tiny motor, he had to travel more than 100km because he could only exchange them for free on the same day.
He did not make the pre-ordered items, but Mr. Hat only focused on the machine that had yet to be shaped. His wife sometimes got impatient with her husband's special passion: "The pre-ordered items, but he did not make them to make money to pay off the debt, and instead he spent all his money on the seeding machine, not knowing if it would be successful or not."
"Even though I'm in the workshop with the deafening noise of welding machines and cutting machines, I still have to wear earplugs to block out gossip.
People gossiped when they saw me locked in the workshop. Some said I didn't study properly, others said I just came back from abroad, what did I learn and why am I trying to create things?", Mr. Hat confided about the difficult time.
Having no way to share his hardships and pressures, he devoted all his energy to creating a seed sowing machine.
After 2 years of eating and sleeping in the workshop, in 2014, the first seeding machine was born.
No relay, no electronic circuit, just a suction machine, needle tip, air valve... installed in the stainless steel body, plug in and turn on the switch and the machine will run. With different sized particles, just replace the suction head with different sized needle tips.
The seeds will be poured into the tray, after the suction heads have collected the seeds, the suction bar will rotate to the back and stop sucking to let the seeds fall out. The seeds will be planted in rows, along the path the robot runs. The machine weighs only 20kg, the wheels are designed to be flexible on all terrains, flatten the soil along the path, and can sow 40 seeds/suction.
The machine ran, opportunities came, his "brainchild" received many big and small invention awards and most importantly, it helped him clear his name: "stealing".
After successfully inventing a seed sowing robot, he entered the inventor competition and won first prize. Mr. Hat continued to compete in the Hai Duong province technical innovation competition in 2012-2013 and won first prize in the province for the 13th time.
"The news made other locals, then Americans, Germans... come to my house," Mr. Hat smiled proudly as he looked at the machine. "When guests came to my house every day, I kept entertaining them nonstop, and then my wife knew I had succeeded."
Receiving the support of his wife and children, and the recognition of his customers, he breathed a sigh of relief: "Suddenly I feel lighter." The words of the man paid off his "debt" to himself.
After the success of the first product, many agricultural machines of the "Hat che tao" brand were introduced one after another.
Among them, the poultry vaccine injection machine was ordered by a German corporation with the requirement of being compact and cheaper than the German type at 35 million VND/unit.
When Mr. Hat produced a similar machine for just over one million dong, the whole group was surprised and admired.
His reputation spread far and wide, and now his products are present in 63 provinces and cities and "cover" 15 countries, including countries with developed science such as: Israel, Korea, Japan, USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Canada...
Many times, Mr. Hat was "impatient" when he came to survey the customer's factory and saw billion-dollar machines, imported from abroad but covered up.
The reason is that these machines are not suitable for agricultural products, soil or weather in Vietnam.
This situation makes him more determined with his manufacturing philosophy which can be summed up in a few words: "easy to use, easy to buy, easy to bring efficiency".
"I don't want others to make the same mistake as me, because after all, we and they are just farmers," Mr. Hat said about the ultimate goal of the machines he makes.
If users complain that the product is cumbersome and difficult to use, then for him, the inventor's job is not complete.
"I have customers who don't need warranty," he said with a smile, "There are people who have bought my machines for 6-7 years now, and they have never called me about any problems related to the machine. When I asked, they said they could replace it themselves. Because the products I create always find simple and easy-to-replace solutions."
Now, without the economic burden of the past, barefoot scientists have the opportunity to freely create machines that serve many different fields, not just limited to agriculture.
He revealed that he had recently invented an escape device that he had been nurturing and successfully testing. Many foreign customers have approached him to transfer the technology, but he has not yet agreed.
"If I invent something that improves life, I just want to transfer the technology to Vietnamese people to use first," Mr. Hat explained.
Three years ago, a world-famous agricultural machinery corporation offered Pham Van Hat a job with a salary of 7,000 USD/month, but he refused.
"For me, there is nothing better than getting rich in my homeland. How can farmers in my country no longer have to work so hard, so that foreigners can use the machine and know that it was made by Vietnamese farmers," Mr. Hat said, his voice filled with fire.
With his contributions, in 2015, he was awarded the Third Class Labor Medal by the President, with "special privilege" for his outstanding achievements in the emulation movement for good production, business and new rural construction in the period 2010-2014.
He was awarded the title "Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer" by the Vietnam Farmers' Association. In 2018, Pham Van Hat was honored at the 70th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's call for patriotic emulation; received the "Vietnamese Talent" honor plaque and was twice honored as a scientist of farmers.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc/anh-nong-dan-hoc-het-lop-7-sang-che-tram-loai-may-15-nuoc-dat-mua-20250312231503477.htm
Comment (0)