8X couple with the story of "holding straw heavy...bag"

Seeing the economic value of this agricultural by-product that people throw away in the fields, every year, Hoang Van Anh's family just goes to collect straw and... lives well.

The straw collecting machine costs nearly 400 million VND, helping to free up human resources and increase labor productivity (Photo: Hoang Lam).

Seeing money in a discarded bag full of copper

At 38 years old, Hoang Van Anh (residing in Khoa Da hamlet, Hung Tay commune, Hung Nguyen district, Nghe An ) owns a fortune that many people dream of. Currently, this man owns 4 straw collecting machines, 2 trucks, a drying system and a warehouse of nearly 1,000 square meters, with a high annual income. His current property is mostly made from small pieces of straw.

Hung Tay is a purely agricultural commune, growing two rice crops a year, but that was before the Vsip Industrial Park was opened here. Now, many agricultural areas have become factories, but Anh and his wife still stick to the fields, just in a different way than before.

Mr. Hoang Van Anh sees the economic value of the straw that farmers discard or waste by burning (Photo: Hoang Lam).

Recalling the early days of his business, Mr. Anh said that at that time, people mainly harvested by hand, then used industrial threshing machines. With more mechanization, fewer cattle were raised, and people had less need for straw than before. Piles of straw were thrown all over the fields, all over the roads, blocking the entire walkway. Being quick in business, Mr. Anh and his wife saw money in those discarded straw piles.

"I think it's a waste for people to throw away straw like that. In many places, people dry it and burn it, thinking that it will increase the humus content of the soil, but scientists have proven that doing so will cause soil degradation and pollute the environment. While people throw it away or burn it, many places really need straw to store for buffalo and cows. So why don't we collect the surplus from people and sell it to those in need?", Anh shared.

Anh and his wife started collecting straw in 2011. At that time, straw collection was done entirely by hand. The couple used an iron rake to rake the straw out to dry, collect it, and load it onto a small truck to sell to people in Nghi An and Nghi Duc (Vinh city) as animal feed or to keep the roots of ornamental plants moist. Each truck could carry about 800 kg of dry straw, and the couple could sell it for 600,000-800,000 VND depending on the time. Compared to rice farming or other jobs, the income from straw is much higher.

Anh Anh uses a dryer system to proactively supply, reserve and increase the value of straw (Photo: Hoang Lam).

The market is expanding, partly through customer referrals, partly through Mr. Anh approaching large farms in the province. At this time, manual collection could not meet the demand, so Mr. Anh went to the South to learn about straw collection machines. After a week of "traveling", he bought a semi-automatic straw collection machine for 110 million VND. The advantage of this machine is that it can collect more and faster, but Mr. Anh had to rent an additional tractor to pull the machine. Not to mention, the straw was collected and rolled up and left right in the field, so Mr. Anh had to hire more workers to carry it to the collection point.

In 2014, he invested nearly 400 million VND to buy a self-propelled rolling machine. With this machine, the work productivity is outstanding, the straw is collected, rolled into rolls, pushed onto the floor, only needing one more worker to stack the straw into the bin designed with the machine. Thus, each collecting machine only uses 3 workers, including the operator, assistant and porter.

Straw left in the fields is collected, rolled up, and supplied to livestock farms in and outside the province (Photo: Hoang Lam).

Billion dollar export orders but dare not accept

The straw collection work of Mr. Anh and his group of workers starts from around the end of April and lasts until the end of October every year, when the spring-summer rice harvest begins and the summer-autumn harvest ends.

"The farming calendar is different in each locality and province, so after we collect all the rice from one field, we move the machine to another field. When the crop season in one province ends, we move to another province. This spring-summer crop, farmers finish harvesting and prepare the land for the new crop, so each province only collects straw for about half a month. As for the summer-autumn crop, the collection time is longer, sometimes more or less a month in each province," said Mr. Anh.

After accounting for labor costs, machine depreciation, and fuel costs, each straw collector makes a profit of about 100 million VND/crop/province.

The straw collection activity of this 8X farmer couple creates jobs with high income for 22 workers, but they still work hard to support the workers (Photo: Hoang Lam).

Many people throw away the straw, but many places sell it, so the profit depends on the field owner. According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Quynh Trang - Anh's wife, after a long time directly collecting straw with her husband, she finds that this job is not without risks.

"People don't sell straw, but they ask for rolled straw. Generally, there are times when they ask for a few rolls, and I'm happy, but there are cases where the husband asks, then the wife asks, and then the child comes out to ask. They asked for so much that I was so impatient that I followed them home and discovered that they brought back more straw than I had left in the field," Trang said.

One time, after finishing rolling the straw, it was already dark, and Trang and her husband were both hungry and tired, so they told each other to go home and eat, and then go out to the field to pick them up later. However, after eating and going to the field, the 40 neatly stacked straw rolls had... evaporated. The whole day's effort of the couple was in vain, not to mention losing money on engine oil.

According to Ms. Trang, although the job of collecting straw has an income of 800,000 to 1.5 million VND/day, not everyone can do it (Photo: Hoang Lam).

In addition, this job is easily affected by unpredictable weather. One year, Anh and his team of workers and machines went to Hue to collect straw, but the continuous rain caused the trip to fail, resulting in a loss of tens of millions of dong. However, this "difficult point" has now been resolved thanks to investing in a straw drying system. Although there is an additional cost to operate the dryer, in return, the straw is dried, stored, and can be proactively supplied to the market.

With the production scale getting larger and the consumer market constantly expanding to other provinces, Mr. Anh had to hire 22 more workers. After Nghe An and Ha Tinh, the group of people and machines "marched" to the northern provinces such as Ninh Binh, Thai Binh, Hai Duong...

The income of workers depends on the technical content they are in charge of, according to the position of mechanic, assistant worker and porter, ranging from 800,000 VND to 1.5 million VND. The job requires diligence, perseverance, good health and endurance due to high labor intensity, living almost in the field during the straw collection season. In fact, Mr. Anh's workers are all from other provinces, mainly from the northern provinces.

"Nghe An people are famous for being hard-working but still can't survive," said Mr. Anh.

Currently, the straw supply is not enough for the domestic market, so Mr. Anh has to refuse many export orders (Photo: Hoang Lam).

According to Mr. Anh, the consumption market for straw is very wide, used for livestock farming in large farms, serving mushroom production, and growing many other plants. His facility only supplies straw to large orders or agents. On average, each year, straw collection lasts 6-7 months but the straw source is not enough to supply the market.

"No matter how much straw there is, it will all be sold, I'm just afraid there won't be any left. I've received several orders worth billions of dong from Korea, Japan... but I don't dare accept them because the straw source is not stable for export," said Mr. Anh.

Currently, Mr. Anh is investing in more presses to save storage space and increase the value of straw. "Normally, a roll of straw delivered to your door costs 40,000 VND, but during Tet or rainy weather, it can go up to 50,000-60,000 VND/roll," said the 8X boss.

06/02/2023

Dantri.com.vn