Escape poverty by growing mulberry and raising hamsters

Domestic and foreign tourists enjoy visiting and enjoying mulberries right in the garden.

Taking us on a tour of the mulberry garden that was bearing fruit, Ms. Mo said that thanks to this tree, her family's dream of escaping poverty came true. Because at one point the family owed more than 1 billion VND, but thanks to growing mulberry, they have now escaped poverty and returned their poor household registration book. "My family was once in a deadlock when both children suffered from serious illnesses. In 2020, the eldest son had leukemia and died a year later. Then another incident struck when the youngest child was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had to have surgery to remove a kidney. Thanks to the local government's support for a poor household registration book, the couple had to borrow more than 1 billion VND to treat their child."

During her child's treatment, Ms. Mo was advised by the doctor to feed her child mulberry fruit to supplement nutrition and strengthen the immune system. From there, seeing the wonderful uses of this plant, knowing that mulberry is easy to grow, has few pests and diseases, has a high selling price and a stable income, Ms. Mo decided to renovate the ineffective mango garden to grow the first hectare of mulberry. In 2022, she bought more seedlings to plant, cut branches, and graft branches to increase the area to ten hectares, planting more than 700 mulberry trees to increase her family's income to stabilize their lives. At that time, she also decided to return her poor household book when she had paid off more than half of her debt thanks to a decent income from mulberry trees. After 2 years of growing mulberry trees, the fruit and high income helped her escape poverty. She added that this is an easy-to-grow tree, requires little care, and has few pests and diseases. After 1 year of planting, the tree begins to bear fruit and can be harvested year-round. To ensure productivity and fruit quality when selling to the market, she has applied an organic production process combined with the use of a drip irrigation system.

Although it is an easy-to-grow plant, to get a high selling price, growers must choose the right time to focus on processing flowering and fruiting. Specifically, during major holidays or the Lunar New Year, mulberry trees are in high demand due to high demand, so they need to be processed to flower in order to sell fruit at this time. During the rainy months, it is advisable to limit the amount of fruit the tree has because it is prone to falling and watering when it rains heavily.

Every year, Ms. Mo harvests more than 12 tons of fruit, selling for 50,000-60,000 VND/kg (depending on the time), which helps her earn more than 250 million VND/year, after deducting all investment costs. In addition to selling strawberries for fresh consumption, she dries the fruits that are not large enough to be sold fresh to make strawberry jam or to make strawberry wine or strawberry honey to make soft drinks. In addition, she also opens the garden for visitors to visit and enjoy drinks made from mulberry fruit.

In addition to growing mulberry, Ms. Mo also developed a model of breeding hamsters to earn extra income. She also took advantage of waste products from the hamster farm such as leftover food to raise freshwater fish in the garden ditch, and used sawdust was composted to make organic fertilizer for mulberry trees, helping to minimize the cost of buying fertilizer, increase profits and help mulberry trees grow safely.

To raise hamsters for good reproduction, Ms. Mo built a greenhouse and applied modern equipment in the breeding process. With 200 pairs of parent hamsters, her farm sells 50-100 hamsters to the market every day, priced at 25,000-35,000 VND/hamster, bringing in an average income of about 2 million VND/day.

Mr. Ngo Phuoc Lanh, Secretary of the Party Cell of Hamlet 3 (Thanh Hoa Commune, Phung Hiep District, Hau Giang Province) assessed that the mulberry growing model of Ms. Mo's family is a new model in the locality, bringing high economic efficiency. In addition, she also creates conditions for about 10 local women to have income by picking leaves or picking mulberries. The local government is also mobilizing her to propagate the tree to provide seedlings to people in need to convert crops and livestock.

Article and photos: NGUYEN TRINH

Source: https://baocantho.com.vn/thoat-ngheo-nho-trong-dau-tam-va-nuoi-chuot-hamster-a186602.html