The invention of agricultural machinery in Kien Giang is by a billionaire who grows rice in fields without foot oil.

Over the past five years, with two rice crops per year and an average yield of 7-7.5 tons/ha, Mr. Tuan, from Kien Binh commune, Kien Luong district ( Kien Giang province), has harvested over 3,600 tons of rice annually. After deducting expenses, his family's profit from rice farming reaches 14 billion VND per year.

Owning over 500 hectares of rice paddies that generate more than ten billion dong in income each year, he remains simple and unpretentious, true to the character of a farmer from the Mekong Delta. He is Nguyen Thanh Tuan (born 1975), residing in Lung Lon hamlet, Kien Binh commune, Kien Luong district (Kien Giang province), and is recognized as an outstanding Vietnamese farmer in 2024.

Mr. Tuan personally drove our delegation along the dike, and the entire 2024 summer-autumn rice field unfolded before our eyes, lush green like a beautiful carpet.

Few would have imagined that this fertile land was once a barren, acidic soil area, covered only with melaleuca trees and weeds.

Mr. Tuan said that the program to develop the Long Xuyen quadrilateral region began in 1988 and lasted more than ten years before it was completed. And his family was one of the households that were involved with this program from the very beginning.

Mr. Tuan recounted that in 2000, his father, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son, was contracted by the province to cultivate 700 hectares of melaleuca forest land.

In that newly settled area, everything was the worst: the poorest, the most miserable, the most deprived of capital, the most inexperienced... Land reclamation and allocation, and soil acidification were basically completed, but the first three years saw crop failures due to the high acidity levels.

The poor lack capital, and those who are better off, after years of continuous losses, have become discouraged. Many have abandoned their investments because they believe the area has very high acidity and there is no way to solve the problem.

Even scientists at the time advised against planting melaleuca trees and rice, saying it would be very difficult to succeed, if not certain to fail.

“There was a time when my father and I stood looking at the rice fields and couldn’t hold back our tears. The rice plants, with their roots curled up and dried out due to the acidic soil, were still tall, and all our hard work yielded nothing,” Mr. Tuan recalled.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan, a billionaire rice farmer cultivating over 500 hectares in Kien Binh commune, Kien Luong district (Kien Giang province) (on the right), stands beside his agricultural machinery manufacturing workshop.

The land seemed to test people's resolve. Perhaps it was their perseverance and deep love for rice that helped Mr. Tuan and his father persevere in this challenging land.

In 2003, Mr. Tuan received a loan of 4 billion VND from the Provincial Agricultural and Rural Development Bank to continue improving his fields and investing in dikes, aiming to achieve a dual benefit: serving as a transportation route for supplies and effectively preventing floods.

Mr. Tuan divided the entire field into 16 plots, each with 3 internal irrigation canals that serve both to supply fresh water and to leach out acidity, salinity, and alum from the soil.

The land did not let them down. After three years of crop failure, the irrigation projects and technical solutions for treating soil acidity proved highly effective, pushing the muddy red water further away from the fields. Rice yields continuously increased. Land that was once worthless now fetched tens of millions of dong per hectare.

Mr. Tuan's family was further motivated to increase production, diligently tending to their fields in the hope of achieving even more bountiful harvests.

Although rice yields have gradually improved over the years, through various rice varieties and different farming methods, the results have not been very effective. His biggest concern is the excessively high production costs; there were even times when the rice he produced was several kilometers long but he couldn't sell it.

Based on that experience, Mr. Tuan changed his mindset, determining that he had to choose high-quality rice varieties to produce clean rice grains in order to improve his situation. And when the Japanese rice variety (DS1) became popular in the world market and consistently sold at a good price, that's when Mr. Tuan chose this variety to replace the old rice varieties.

“To lower production costs, I chose to sow sparsely using a row planter with only 60kg of seeds per hectare, instead of the dense sowing of 300kg of seeds per hectare as before. Sparsely sown rice grows vigorously, reduces pests and diseases, so it not only reduces seed and fertilizer costs but also helps reduce pesticide costs,” Mr. Tuan said.

Over the past five years, with two rice crops per year and an average yield of 7-7.5 tons/ha, Mr. Tuan's family has harvested more than 3,600 tons of rice annually.

After deducting expenses, his family's rice farming business generates 14 billion VND in profit per year. In addition, he also runs a business supplying agricultural materials and providing services for plows and harvesters, generating nearly 2.2 billion VND in profit annually and creating jobs for 30 local workers with an income of 8 million VND per person per month.

Not only is Mr. Tuan knowledgeable about rice cultivation, but he has also successfully improved a 4-in-1 tillage machine, which speeds up the process of plowing and leveling the field before sowing.

In the rice planting and fertilization process, he uses drones, which helps improve production efficiency and ensures simultaneous planting according to the seasonal schedule. All these conditions helped Mr. Tuan meet the strict requirements when a company specializing in exporting rice to the Japanese and European markets selected him to sign a contract to purchase his rice.

Having experienced many hardships, even when they became financially secure, Mr. and Mrs. Tuan maintained a simple lifestyle and were always ready to share with the poor. Besides donating tens of tons of rice to the poor each year, along with hundreds of Tet (Lunar New Year) gifts, and building rural bridges worth hundreds of millions of dong, Mr. Tuan even bought a charitable ambulance to help the poor when they are sick.

Mr. Tuan said: "My wife and I believe that if we have food, we should share it with others. That's the right thing to do."

Mr. Do Tran Thinh, Chairman of the Kien Giang Provincial Farmers' Association, stated: “The Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Association issued Decision No. 777-QD/HNDTW awarding the title of “Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer” in 2024 to 63 farmers nationwide. Among them, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan is the only farmer from Kien Giang to receive this title and is the rice farmer with the highest profit in the country, earning 16.2 billion VND per year.”

Source: https://danviet.vn/sang-che-may-nong-nghiep-o-kien-giang-la-ong-ty-phu-trong-lua-tren-canh-dong-khong-dau-chan-20241222203737041.htm