Taking advantaged of a riverside land, Luong Ngoc Van has successfully developed a tortoise farmstead at An Tay commune, Ben Cat district. By his ambition and trust in tortoise breeding model, Van has turned a inefficient land into a farmstead with an income of billions of VND per year.

  Luong Ngoc Van and his products of tortoises.Making wealth from tortoise

Many agricultural cadres and farmers nationwide often visit Luong Ngoc Van’s tortoise farmstead at Truong Tho aquatic product facility in Lo O hamlet, Ben Cat district to learn about his efficient tortoise model. In the past, his 3-ha land in the hamlet was an inefficient muddy area but now it becomes a well-off land, making many people admire.

Born in the Mekong Delta province of Ca Mau, he and his wife in 1989 took their children to Binh Duong province for business start-up. At that time was the peak time of lacquer industry. Thanks to assistance from an artisan, Van entered the industry and quickly became a successful entrepreneur possessing Thanh Binh lacquer workshop. However, several years later, the lacquer industry was declined seriously, making many local lacquer workshops suspend operation. The recession made him abandon the work. After a time of seeking jobs for 50 laborers who worked for him for a long time, he started breeding tortoise.

After 1991, a movement of breeding tortoise took place lively everywhere. Shortly after, his name was in a club for tortoise breeders in Thu Dau Mot town. However, his tortoises were died of improper environment. While other tortoise breeders quit the breeding, he bravely invested his capital in building a other model of tortoise breeding in lake and river.

Initially, he experimentally raised tortoise on a land for rent at Chanh My commune and reached encouraging results. Then, he moved to An Tay commune, Ben Cat district to expand his model in 2002. The first batch of tortoise brought a big success for him with a profit of more than VND200mil, a 2-3 fold increase from his expectation. After the first batch’s success, he continued expanding his model. He has therefore possessed a nearly 3ha tortoise farmstead. After 14 months of breeding, he has reaped about VND1.6bil per year.

Helping each other for making wealth

Presently, his Truong Tho tortoise farmstead has offered over 1,000 breeding tortoises for breeders nationwide with price of VND3,000 per a 2 weeks old tortoise and VND5,000 per a 4 weeks old one, aside from supplying meat tortoises for market. However, owing to the rising demand, breeding tortoise has become rare. So, buyers must await for several weeks.

To help breeders develop the model, he is ready to instruct techniques of building ponds and breeding tortoise effectively. In addition, he has offered a 5% discount of breeding tortoise for farmers.

Reported by T.Minh – Translated by A.C