Quit a stable job to pursue farming

Ms. Le Thi Minh Phuong (born in 1988, Tan Tao A ward, Binh Tan district, Ho Chi Minh City) decided to quit her job as a tailor and switch to growing cucumbers using nets, applying automatic drip irrigation technology.

Ms. Phuong's method of growing cucumbers saves costs such as land preparation, weeding, fertilizing, and watering. In particular, it limits many harmful organisms on the cucumber plants. This gives high economic value per unit of cultivated land area, and the cultivation method is quite environmentally friendly.

The cucumber variety that Ms. Le Thi Minh Phuong chose to grow is the American hybrid cucumber F1 napali 64, the harvest time is about 2-3 months, and can be grown 3-4 crops/year. It is estimated that the average yield of Ms. Phuong's cucumber garden is 6-7 tons/250m2/year, the retail price is 45,000 VND/kg, the annual income is from 200 - 250 million VND. After deducting expenses, Ms. Phuong earns about 130-150 million VND per year.

The drip irrigation system, hanging racks, pots, and net houses continue to be reused in the next melon growing seasons, so the profit each year increases compared to the previous year.

Born in 1988 like Ms. Phuong, Mr. Tran Thanh Binh was a student at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and had a high-paying job. But to the surprise of many people, he quit his job and chose to start a business with a hydroponic vegetable growing model.

"When my family first heard my idea of ​​investing hundreds of millions of dong to grow hydroponic vegetables, they were hesitant and worried. But with faith, determination and persuasion, I started implementing the model at the end of 2020," Mr. Binh confided.

Right from the beginning of the hydroponic vegetable growing project, Mr. Binh was concerned about finding an outlet in the market to ensure that the vegetables would not be unsold. He determined that the product standards aimed at his customers were supermarkets and clean vegetable systems in Ho Chi Minh City.

Thereby, he established Hitech Agricultural Products Production and Trading Joint Stock Company to supply products of international quality standards ISO; HACCP; HALAL... and clean agricultural production and practice standards: Global GAP - Viet GAP.

After 3 years of building a hydroponic greenhouse vegetable growing model, Tran Thanh Binh has expanded the scale with 2 farms in Cu Chi district and Thu Duc city, each farm is 2,000m2 wide. On average, each week, the vegetable garden harvests about 2-3 tons of lettuce, mainly supplying to supermarkets and systems such as Winmart, Genshai, Emart, Lotte Mart. The average selling price is from 30,000 - 50,000 VND/kg, depending on the type of vegetable.

Contribute to changing agricultural thinking

Currently, urban agriculture and high-tech agriculture are inevitable directions for Ho Chi Minh City. At the conference summarizing the agricultural sector in 2023 and deploying tasks for 2024, Mr. Vo Van Hoan emphasized that the city's agricultural sector needs to change from agricultural production thinking to agricultural economics. Ho Chi Minh City must produce agriculture in the direction of research, testing, demonstration and dissemination of highly effective models.

Dr. Do Xuan Hong - Director of the Technology Business Incubation Center (Ho Chi Minh City University of Agriculture and Forestry) said that with the current shortage of young human resources for the country's agricultural sector, the fact that young people choose to start a business in the agricultural sector is a very positive sign.

Especially among them must be mentioned the young people who bring knowledge learned from many places to contribute to their homeland.

In Ho Chi Minh City, agriculture must further promote high-tech development, applying digital transformation in production, ensuring consistency with the overall development of the city.

"In fact, digital transformation in agriculture is a train that cannot be missed. If we want to reduce costs; reduce intermediaries; make product background transparent; make the production process transparent; buyers and consumers can monitor remotely... digital transformation is the inevitable path. And young people returning to their hometowns to do agriculture, if they are determined to follow the path of digital transformation, will certainly reap success, both economically and in terms of brand in a sustainable way, without fading away" - Mr. Dang Duong Minh Hoang - Head of the national Luong Dinh Cua network emphasized.

At the Conference on Training and Development of Agricultural Human Resources and Rural Development in the Southern Region, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan said that training agricultural human resources must follow the value chain. Training agricultural human resources is not only to work for businesses, but also to create owners.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development believes that training must be closely linked to life needs, life itself, not preparation for life. Therefore, agricultural startups in schools should not be done following a trend. Startups should not be a playground but must be real, creating real efficiency and value.