Scaling up the automation model in livestock farming.

Instead of applying manual farming methods, Mr. Duong Van Trung (in Minh Lap commune, Dong Hy district) has introduced automation applications into his livestock farming, resulting in high economic efficiency and freeing up manual labor. This process, linked with groups of like-minded households, has created many farms with consistent product quality and increased commercial value.

Mr. Duong Van Trung conducts periodic quality checks on the chickens at his farm.

Having graduated from university with a degree in Electrical Automation over a decade ago, Duong Van Trung and his classmates worked at various businesses in Quang Ninh and Hai Phong . After a while, he found his work quite monotonous compared to his academic knowledge. Improvements and innovations during his work received little attention from businesses, and the value of his initiatives was difficult to realize, especially since the production process required interaction and synchronization throughout the factory…

In 2015, Trung decided to return to his family's home in Minh Ly hamlet, Minh Lap commune, to start a business growing and processing tea and raising livestock on a family farm.

With over 2,000 square meters of tea plantations and nearly 10,000 square meters of orchards and production forests, Mr. Trung has installed an automatic irrigation system. The equipment is connected to a water pump and controlled via smartphone. This method allows him and his family to completely take control of irrigating their crops without the hassle of hauling water pumps to various locations as they did before.

At the same time, he designed fertilizer mixing tanks according to type and timing, and the appropriate water spraying speed for irrigation of crops…

In just 4 months, the plants thrived, especially the yield and quality of tea increased 1.5 times compared to the previous manual care process, and the value of tea harvest reached nearly 140 million VND/ha/year.

After reorganizing production and developing his family's economy , Mr. Trung dedicated over 3,000 square meters of garden land to growing grass using an automatic irrigation system to feed his 3B cows. He also reorganized his farm to raise 100 fattening pigs, 6 sows, and 3,000 broiler chickens per batch.

As a result, total revenue in 2016 reached over 1.5 billion VND, paying regular wages to 4 employees at over 7.5 million VND per month.

Building on his initial successes, Mr. Trung self-taught himself more about animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, and combined this with the introduction of automated production lines in animal husbandry and feed processing. As a result, his farm generates a stable income of 1.5-1.7 billion VND per year. After deducting investment costs, his family saves an additional 500 million VND annually.

Mr. Trung shared: "The highest income comes from raising chickens using an automated production line. Chicks are raised in a concentrated farm for about 3 months under an automated system programmed on a computer or smartphone, then released to roam freely on hillsides and in the forest. Therefore, the meat quality is always favored by customers, so the selling price is higher than the average for other farms in the area."

Due to high demand, Trung's family has partnered with other households in the neighborhood and transferred automation technology, as well as formulas and techniques for livestock farming.

In 2024 and early this year, his family expanded their chicken farming operation to 30-35 thousand birds per batch using the Ho hybrid breed, through partnerships with 10 households in the commune, achieving a production of over 200 tons of chicken meat per year.

At 36 years old, Mr. Trung has made solid progress using his expertise and built a comfortable family economy. To further apply automation technology to livestock farming, Mr. Trung added: Before implementation, it's essential to thoroughly understand the growth characteristics of livestock and crops, as well as the soil conditions and daily weather... from which to synthesize the most general parameters for designing the operational process.

Currently, after receiving training and technology transfer, the affiliated farms have basically mastered automation techniques and achieved high production efficiency. However, production and business are still not truly stable. In the future, he will continue to build a stronger linkage chain, especially in brand building and sustainable market development.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/kinh-te/202504/nhan-rong-mo-hinh-tu-dong-hoa-trong-chan-nuoi-ed92674/