Young couple in the West earn millions every day with a "giant" mushroom farm

After graduating from university with a major in agricultural engineering in Ho Chi Minh City, Lam Thai Duong (35 years old) and Le Ho Thuy Linh (33 years old) stayed in the city to start a business in the clean water industry, but both times they failed.

Straw mushrooms are a traditional, nutritious food that both vegetarians and non-vegetarians can eat (Photo: Nguyen Cuong).

"When we first graduated in 2013, we were very confident, pooling capital to make clean vegetables with a model of growing and caring for organic vegetables at home for customers. We expected to not spend capital, and quickly make a profit, but then the income could not cover the expenses, the youthful enthusiasm was slapped by reality," Ms. Linh happily recalled the memory of her failed startup.

Failing in "episode 1", Linh and her husband went to work for hire to earn capital to start "episode 2". The young couple chose to work in the agricultural sector to gain experience.

Young couple in the West earn millions of dong every day with a "giant" mushroom farm (Produced by: Nguyen Cuong).

Having gathered a small amount of capital, Mr. Duong and Ms. Linh continued their dream of producing clean vegetables for office workers in Ho Chi Minh City. The plan was not implemented for long before they had to abandon it because no one bought the vegetables. When all their savings were spent, both of them had to accept the "second slap" of the start-up process.

Feeling that she had no connection with the city, Linh decided to return to her hometown in the border commune of Binh Phu (Tan Hong, Dong Thap ). Duong, "fish follow the river, husband follows wife", also returned.

Not giving up on their dream of clean agriculture, Linh and her husband asked their grandparents for 25 rolls of straw to grow organic mushrooms. After a few ups and downs, luckily this time they got results.

At first, afraid of failure, Mr. Duong did not dare to compost all the straw at once. He took 11 rolls of straw, followed the recipe and stacked them on a bamboo shelf to compost.

After 6 years of growing mushrooms, Ms. Linh has developed an effective growing process and is achieving positive results (Photo: Nguyen Cuong).

"According to the books, mushrooms can be picked every half month, but after a few days of delay, there were still no mushrooms. My husband and I were very sad and dumped all the straw into the garden. Unexpectedly, a few days later, the straw was covered with mushrooms," Linh said.

Although he made a mistake with the recipe but got the result, Mr. Duong learned from his experience and did not make a shelf but built a hut to incubate the remaining 14 rolls of straw. This time, the young couple harvested nearly 40kg of mushrooms, earning more than 2 million VND.

With a small amount of capital, Ms. Linh divided it into two parts, one half took Mr. Duong to buy iron to weld shelves, the other half she went to buy straw to produce the new crop. Because the lessons in books were not really effective when growing mushrooms in the countryside, the couple rode their old motorbike to all the mushroom farms in the West to ask for more lessons.

"There are farmers who are more meticulous than engineers. They record all the daily parameters of the farm. Seeing that we really wanted to learn, many of them did not hesitate to give us their notebooks. Those experiences are very valuable," said Linh.

With the mushrooms "opened", Ms. Linh is researching making fish sauce to increase the value (Photo: Nguyen Cuong).

Working seriously, the results gradually became clear, the number of mushroom shelves of Linh and her husband increased exponentially. Then from the mushroom shelves, Duong built greenhouses to grow mushrooms. One house, then two houses, then 24 houses.

"Straw mushrooms look like that but are very difficult to care for and are sensitive to living conditions. They die in heat, cold, too dry, and spoiled in too much moisture," Linh shared.

To produce stable and effective products, at the beginning of this year, Linh and her husband decided to invest a large amount of capital to build a solid house of 1,500 square meters to grow mushrooms. The house is divided into 48 rooms, equipped with growing racks, electric lights, fans, heaters, and misting machines.

To have products to deliver to customers every day, the young couple takes turns sowing straw in only 3 rooms each day. At the same time, 3 other growing rooms have mushrooms to harvest. With a firm grasp of the technique, Mr. Duong is confident in controlling the output and quality of the products.

Mushrooms can be harvested after 15 days of planting, and after 3 days of harvesting, the first batch is finished. Depending on the quantity of goods customers need, Ms. Linh can leave them to wait for the second batch of mushrooms to reduce costs, or discard the old mushrooms for the new crop to increase yield.

Ms. Linh's mushroom farm is creating stable jobs for 2 local workers (Photo: Nguyen Cuong).

"The straw brought in must be detoxified with lime and sterilized with high-temperature steam before production. If running at full capacity, the farm can produce over 30 tons of mushrooms each year.

I am currently looking for more outlets, only operating half of the growing rooms. At 3am, workers start picking mushrooms, to deliver them to customers in time for the morning market. The farm regularly earns over 2 million VND every day," said Ms. Linh.

Currently, Linh and her husband's finished products are only consumed in markets within a radius of about 10km. Linh is researching making mushroom products such as fish sauce and freeze-dried mushrooms to have more output and create added value.

Ms. Ngo Thi Thuy Trang (47 years old, a trader at the central market of Tan Hong district) said that straw mushrooms are a traditional food of local people, vegetarians can also eat them, so the consumption is quite large and stable. Every day, a trader like her can sell a few dozen kilograms of mushrooms at 100,000 VND/kg.

"Ms. Linh's mushrooms have a safe and clear growing process, so I can sell them to customers more easily and at a higher price than the average, so customers are more likely to buy them," Ms. Trang shared.

Tan Hong district leaders highly appreciate Linh and her husband’s mushroom growing model because it is suitable for local conditions. The district is planning to support the farm in building a brand and registering for certification of local specialty products.

Source link: https://dantri.com.vn/lao-dong-viec-lam/vo-chong-tre-mien-tay-thu-tien-trieu-moi-ngay-voi-trai-nam-khong-lo-20231002073723583.htm