Fate to come to the fish farming profession
Coming to hamlet 5, Xuan Du commune, Thanh Hoa province, asking Mr. Ha Van Toan (born 1992), everyone knows him. Local people often call him "Toan fish", because every year he sells hundreds of tons of single-sex tilapia to the market.
Sharing about his predestined relationship with fish farming, Mr. Toan said that he used to be a car mechanic in the city, with a fairly stable income. However, at the end of 2025, through an acquaintance, he learned about the model of raising single-sex tilapia for export, bringing high profits, so he cherished the idea of returning to his hometown to raise fish.
I just do it when I like it. Initially, my friend and I planned, decided to contribute capital and learn about farming techniques. Along with that, we surveyed the location and comprehensively evaluated before starting to implement it" - Mr. Toan shared.
According to Mr. Toan, after realizing that many irrigation lakes in his hometown have large water surface areas but have not been effectively exploited, he and his friend decided to hire more than 3 hectares of water surface, carry out renovation and investment to raise fish.
His and his friend's fish farming model is linked to a business specializing in processing fish for export to the European market. This business supports technical transfer, provides breeds, feed and consumes all output products.
To ensure a good environment for fish to grow and develop favorably, before stocking, the water source quality inspection must be carried out very carefully.
When all conditions were guaranteed, Mr. Toan and his friend invested more than 250 million VND to purchase equipment and buy 170,000 breeds to release.
Collecting billions of VND each year
Mr. Toan said that the technique of raising single-sex tilapia is not too complicated, but farmers must regularly monitor the health of the fish herd, promptly detect skin diseases, especially fungal diseases. Because when fed, fish often concentrate at high density, collide with each other, so they are easily scratched, thereby developing fungal diseases and spreading to the whole herd.
Every day, the fish are fed twice at noon and in the afternoon. To reduce labor costs, Mr. Toan invested in 6 automatic feeding machines, priced at about 8 million VND/piece. This makes feeding the fish more convenient.
Since spawning, after about 5 months of farming, the fish can reach a weight of 600-800g/fish and meet the conditions for sale.
This fish season, I plan to harvest about 100 tons. Currently, the selling price is about 30,000 VND/kg, total revenue reaches about 3 billion VND. Excluding costs such as labor, seeds, feed..., profits can reach more than 500 million VND" - Mr. Toan shared.
According to Mr. Toan, fish farming is most important in the output stage. However, because businesses guarantee product consumption, if the fish is large enough and meets standards, it will be harvested. With initial advantages, Mr. Toan and his friend are planning to continue expanding the farming scale, and at the same time linking with households in the area to not only increase output but also solve jobs for many people.
Compared to the traditional fish farming method before, export tilapia farming brings higher economic efficiency. In addition, each farming batch does not last for a whole year. If overlapping crops, 2 batches can be farmed each year" - Mr. Toan said.
Representatives of the leadership of Xuan Du Commune People's Committee, Thanh Hoa province said that in the commune, Mr. Toan's tilapia farming model for export is the first model.
Recognizing that Mr. Toan's fish farming model has initially brought high economic efficiency, while there are currently dozens of irrigation lakes and dams in the locality, in the coming time, the commune will propagate to the people and consider replicating this model. Thereby, contributing to bringing stable income and solving jobs for many households in the locality" - representative of Xuan Du Commune People's Committee said.
