Converting livestock to suit sustainable economic development

In recent years, many farming households in Huong Hoa district have proactively converted livestock to suit local natural conditions, while actively applying scientific and technological advances to livestock farming to bring high economic efficiency. In particular, the goat and rabbit farming model of Ms. Nguyen Thi Sau's family in Tan Trung village, Tan Lap commune is a typical example.

Ms. Sau takes care of her family's goats - Photo: ML

Previously, Ms. Sau's family mainly raised chickens and geese in the garden. However, due to traditional farming methods and simple investment in barns, unstable product output, the economic efficiency was not high.

Realizing that the locality has abundant grass resources, many types of leaves, and agricultural by-products suitable for raising rabbits and goats, Ms. Sau spent time researching technical documents on raising caged goats, meat rabbits, and breeding rabbits on the internet, learning practical experience from effective raising models in neighboring areas and determined to change the production model.

From preferential loans through the Commune Farmers' Association channel along with the savings, in 2020, taking advantage of the large home garden, her family spent 500 m2 of land investing about 300 million VND to build a rabbit and goat farming model with closed, high, clean and airy barns. At first, she experimented with raising 50 goats and 50 native rabbits.

In the barn, she fully equipped the veterinary medicine cabinet, water cooling system, lighting, fan, automatic feeding and drinking system, grass rolling machine... to ensure environmental hygiene as well as prevent disease for livestock.

Thanks to her proactive knowledge and techniques in animal care, after a while, her family's goat and rabbit herd grew rapidly, each litter she raised from 150 to 250 goats and over 300 rabbits. She planted elephant grass, took advantage of natural grass leaves, banana leaves and stems in her garden as animal feed, thus saving a significant amount of money.

Currently, she has proactively sourced local breeds to both serve her family's livestock needs and provide them to households in need in the area, while avoiding the risk of disease from outside entering her family's livestock area.

After 3 years of converting to livestock farming, thanks to good care, Ms. Sau's family's model has developed very smoothly, with no disease outbreaks in the livestock herd and a stable consumption market. With this model, after deducting expenses, Ms. Sau's family earns an average of nearly 200 million VND per year. In addition to livestock farming, Ms. Sau's family also grows more than 1 hectare of cajuput, ready for harvest.

“After switching to raising goats and rabbits, I found them very suitable for the local climate conditions. These animals are easy to raise, reproduce and develop quickly, the food source is mostly available, taking advantage of the idle farming time, and the product output is also more stable than raising chickens and geese in the traditional way. Therefore, in the near future, we will build more barns to expand livestock farming to increase income and develop a sustainable economy,” Ms. Sau shared.

Chairman of Tan Lap Commune Farmers' Association Nguyen Trung Hieu said: "Ms. Sau's family is one of the young farmer members' families, who are diligent in researching and learning in changing production methods. With the goat and rabbit farming model, her family has effectively promoted loan sources and applied scientific and technical knowledge well into production practices. In the coming time, the association will continue to propagate and mobilize members in the commune to learn and exploit the potential and strengths of the locality to develop the economy appropriately and effectively."

Minh Long

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