Overcoming adversity to get rich

Born into a farming family in the poor countryside of My Loi village, Thanh Vinh commune, like many other young people, in 2008, when he was only 18 years old, Truong Van Minh got married and moved out. In 2010, the couple gave birth to their first daughter. It seemed like their married life was perfect, but he suddenly fell ill and was bedridden. All the family's accumulated economic resources, borrowed from relatives and friends, were poured into his treatment. Unable to bear the hardship, his wife left him and left their young child to care for. With no money, debt, illness, or young child, his life almost came to a standstill. Minh shared: "At that time, my life almost came to a dead end, but thinking of my young child, I tried to overcome it."

Báo Thanh Hóa•06/12/2025

The spacious house of Mr. Truong Van Minh's family in My Loi village, Thanh Vinh commune is in the process of completion.

Not resigned to his fate, Mr. Minh started over from the 2 hectares of garden his parents left behind. However, due to poor health and lack of investment capital, the first years of harvest from the garden were only enough to cover the daily living expenses of the father and son. The opportunity came when in 2017 his family was given a breeding cow from a project under the National Target Program for Sustainable Poverty Reduction and capital from local poverty reduction support programs. He converted 2 hectares of ineffective sugarcane plantation to lemongrass plantation. From the initial breeding cows, he multiplied the herd to many cows. From here, the family's income has been going in and out and a portion has been saved to pay off debt.

In 2022, after learning and being trained through vocational training courses organized by the People's Committee of Thanh Vinh Commune (old) in coordination with other units, Mr. Minh started building a model of breeding sika deer and collecting velvet antlers. This is a sustainable economic model, low risk and easy to care for if the right techniques are applied. He sold his herd of cows combined with loans and local support to invest in barns and buy a pair of breeding deer. In addition to care, Mr. Minh also researched and arranged the barn system in a reasonable, scientific, airy, and environmentally friendly way, to help the deer grow well and prevent diseases. From the initial pair of breeding deer, up to now, the family's herd of deer has 7. Mr. Minh said: "On average, each adult deer brings in a profit of 10 - 15 million VND from selling fresh deer velvet. In addition, if we process health-supporting products from deer velvet, the income will increase even more." In addition to selling fresh deer antlers, Mr. Minh also breeds and lets deer reproduce to sell the breed. After the deer are 3-4 months old, they can be sold for 20-25 million VND/male deer and 15-20 million VND/female deer.

Diligence, hard work, eagerness to learn, daring to think and dare to do have helped Minh's family gradually escape poverty, stabilize their lives, and become rich. Although the initial stage still faced many difficulties, Minh has initially succeeded with an economic model combining deer farming and lemongrass growing, bringing in an income of over 100 million VND/year.

With his savings, in June 2025, he invested more than 1 billion VND to build a spacious house. "Although I need a lot of capital to invest in expanding the scale of livestock and production, I have saved money to build a house so that my daughter and I can have a stable place to live. My greatest joy right now is that my daughter is obedient, studies well, and is loved by her friends and teachers," Minh happily boasted.

With his self-reliance, Mr. Truong Van Minh deserves to be a typical example in developing the local family economy. His story of overcoming difficulties to escape poverty and become rich is also a motivation for young people and farmers to constantly strive to build a prosperous life through their own labor.

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