Success comes from daring to think and daring to act.

In Phu Binh commune, a region famous for its Phu Binh hill chicken brand, when mentioning Mr. Nguyen Van Duong, farmers of all sizes, from large to small, and traders in the area all admire the willpower, determination, innovation, and daring spirit of this farmer who was previously only familiar with rice paddies.

With 13 automatic incubators, only 2 workers are needed to operate them.

From trader to owner of a poultry egg hatchery.

Looking at Mr. Nguyen Van Duong's spacious house in Phu Binh commune today, no one can imagine the difficult and arduous years he went through selling goods from a basket.

Sharing his story with us, Mr. Duong said emotionally: "To achieve the success I have today, I have overcome many difficulties. Besides being greatly affected by market factors, the volatile prices of commercial broiler chickens when prices were low, people didn't expand their farming, leading to a decrease in the supply of poultry breeds, not to mention diseases that also caused farmers to hold back..."

Mr. Duong's entry into the poultry egg incubation business was quite accidental. In 1991, after leaving the military, Mr. Duong returned home to develop his family's economy . Recognizing that selling eggs to poultry hatcheries was highly profitable and infrequently done, Mr. Duong and his wife decided to switch business models.

After many years in the egg trading business, seeing that people in Tan Yen district, Bac Giang province (now Bac Ninh ) had the business of incubating eggs, he proactively learned about it. Recognizing that Phu Binh district had the advantage of large areas of hilly land suitable for poultry farming, he decided to borrow more money from relatives to invest in opening an egg incubation facility.

Thanks to the high-quality output and word-of-mouth, not only local people but also many traders ordered poultry from his farm to supply neighboring provinces. Recognizing the market demand, Mr. Duong decided to invest in gradually expanding his poultry egg incubation facility.

In a conversation with us, Mr. Nguyen Van Khoa, former Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Huong Son town (now Phu Binh commune), said: In recent years, Mr. Duong's family has expanded the scale of their egg incubation facility. Not only do they supply the market within the province, but their poultry breeding stock is also imported in large quantities by traders from northern provinces.

What is commendable about Mr. Duong is that he provides poultry breeds to disadvantaged families on a deferred payment basis, supporting them until the chickens are ready for market, at which point they pay for the chicks. Through this approach, Mr. Duong has helped many struggling families in the area to strive and improve their lives.

After years of using manual egg incubators and employing many workers with low efficiency, Mr. Nguyen Van Duong decided to innovate by applying technology and switching to an automatic egg-turning incubator.

Egg incubator "made in Vietnam"

Mr. Duong boldly converted all his manual egg incubators to automatic ones. The new incubator system not only reduced labor costs, but the automatic egg turning, as well as stable temperature and humidity, improved the rate of timely hatching of chicks and the overall success rate.

In addition, he also collaborates with other farmers in the region to provide technical guidance on raising egg-laying chickens and purchases all the eggs produced by the affiliated farms.

The automatic poultry egg incubator was researched and developed by Mr. Duong in collaboration with Viet Thang Joint Stock Company.

In 2021, on an area of ​​over 20,000 square meters, he further invested in two parent chicken farms to proactively supply eggs to his incubator using a closed-loop process. In chicken farming, he invested in technology to build a closed-loop system with cooling, temperature control, automatic feeders and waterers, etc.

Sharing his excitement about the transition from manual to automated incubators, Mr. Nguyen Van Duong said: "Manual incubators require a lot of manpower to turn the eggs to ensure even temperature distribution, which is essential for a high hatching success rate. However, with the latest generation incubator I'm using, I can achieve a hatching rate of up to 99% on the scheduled day. Therefore, my family always meets the requirements of traders when importing large quantities of chicks, ensuring they hatch on time and with the highest quality. This is the most important factor in establishing the business reputation of our facility."

Accompanying Mr. Duong on a tour of the automated incubator area, we felt like we were walking through a factory grounds due to its cleanliness, orderliness, and the fully automated production process. Thirteen poultry egg incubators were needed, but only two workers were required, as most of the processes were automated.

With 13 poultry hatcheries, Mr. Duong's family business not only supplies chicks within the province but also to many neighboring provinces and cities. On average, his family supplies about 200,000 chicks to the market each month, with an average selling price of 10,000 VND/chick. After deducting expenses, he earns a profit of 2-3 billion VND per year, creating jobs for 13 local workers with an average income of about 7-8 million VND/person/month.

During the production process, Mr. Duong was always concerned because the egg incubators were all imported from China, resulting in high costs and difficulties in repairing them when they broke down, which was time-consuming and expensive. His concerns were recognized and supported by the provincial leadership and the Department of Science and Technology. In just under three months, with the active support of Mr. Nguyen Van Duong, the "made in Vietnam" automatic egg incubator, researched and developed by Vietnamese engineers, was successfully created.

Mr. Nguyen Thai Binh, Deputy Director of Product Development at Viet Thang JSC, shared: "When working directly with farmer Nguyen Van Duong, we felt his passion for innovation and creativity. Our engineering team also received a lot of practical advice and insights from him."

Thanks to that seamless collaboration, we were able to launch the "made in Vietnam" automatic egg incubator product early and with unexpected success. To produce in large quantities and lower production costs to compete with imported poultry egg incubators from China, we will continue to work with Mr. Nguyen Van Duong to optimize the egg incubator product in the future.

After a period of research, in early 2025, the automatic egg incubator developed by engineers and scientists of Viet Thang Joint Stock Company in collaboration with farmer Nguyen Van Duong was put into operation with a high on-time hatching rate. This result demonstrates that the farmers have shown innovation and a willingness to think outside the box and take risks in their production process.

Recently, Thai Nguyen province launched the first "Innovation - For Beloved Thai Nguyen" competition in 2025, and Mr. Nguyen Van Duong became one of many outstanding exemplary farmers. With his achievements in production and business, Mr. Duong was honored with the Third-Class Labor Medal, a Certificate of Merit from the Prime Minister, and was recognized by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Association as an Outstanding Farmer nationwide.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/nghi-quyet-57/202509/thanh-cong-nho-dam-nghi-dam-lam-869369a/