Aquaculture × tourism for 1 billion VND a year: how Cam Ranh's Billionaire Farmers Club earns its money

In Nam Cam Ranh commune, Khanh Hoa province in south-central Vietnam, a "Billionaire Farmers Club" gathering 11 farm managers with annual incomes over 1 billion dong was launched on June 25, 2026. Members are a high-earning, multi-business tier who, with shrimp and lobster farming at the core, single-handedly bundle together farmstay-style tourism, restaurants, and even water taxis. Rather than earning from aquaculture alone, they stack up profit by making the sea and the origin itself into products. For Japanese seafood people and buyers, this can be read as a sign that the image of the producer is changing from "a counterpart you buy cheaply from" to "a counterpart who can design how to earn on the ground."

In Nam Cam Ranh, 11 "billionaire farmers" joined hands

According to Dan Viet, which announced it, the club was formally launched by Nam Cam Ranh commune's Farmers' Association (equivalent to an agricultural cooperative) at an operations-report gathering. The condition for joining is being a producer with a business scale of annual income of 1 billion dong or more, with 11 initial members. Nguyen Dinh The took the chair. Members' businesses range widely, from livestock, to eco-tourism combining aquaculture and tourism (farmstay), to restaurants, to water taxis by speedboat.

At the same time, the Farmers' Association bundled seven members to establish the lobster-farming cooperative "Kien Long Company Cam Ranh" and advanced support to 30 households toward developing agricultural production. There were community-contribution moves too; partnering with Yen Sao Khanh Hoa, it contributed 70 million dong as initial costs for housing construction to Nguyen Van Binh, a near-poor household (Hon Qui hamlet). On these efforts, the Farmers' Association allocated a total of 1.5 billion dong across three projects.

Why a "farming village" began teaming up with tourism

Cam Ranh Bay is one of Vietnam's leading lobster (locally tom hum) producing areas, and its quiet inlets with good depth and tidal flow suit cage farming. The producer who rose to prominence here is someone like Truong Van Lai, who started with 50 lobster post-larvae in 1994 and has now grown to a scale of 400 million dong in annual sales. He was selected as one of Vietnam's "63 Outstanding Farmers" in 2025. The accumulation of such success cases became the foundation for this club's formation.

What is new is that the earning mouth is not placed on aquaculture alone. The sea with the cages is also a tourism resource; farmstays draw overnight guests, the catch is served on the spot at an in-house restaurant, and the water taxi carrying guests is run in-house too. A kind of local sixth-industrialization is advancing, in which one manager vertically holds production, processing-and-serving, and services. One can sense a design philosophy that does not stake all revenue on the highly volatile lobster market but levels it out with tourism and dining.

Exports grew, but market risk has not disappeared

Behind this is the rapid expansion of Vietnamese lobster exports. By industry statistics, lobster export value in 2025 reached about US$858 million, of which the overwhelming share—about US$845 million—went to China. In January–September 2025 alone, China imported over 17,000 tonnes, swelling to nearly triple the same period of the prior year. The driver is the 150–300-gram green lobster, favored by Chinese consumers.

However, exports growing does not necessarily mean producers' take-home pay is stable. Even in the period when shipments to China surged, there were phases where the farm-gate selling price sank to record lows. Because demand is concentrated in one country, once the counterpart country's regulations or quarantine clog up, prices swing greatly. The structure of this club holding revenue sources outside aquaculture can be read as a self-defense against this market risk.

The local and industry reception

Among local producers, expectations toward organizing are being voiced. Even small-scale cage operators with weak bargaining power on their own can move advantageously in securing post-larvae, materials, and shipment destinations if they come together into cooperatives or member clubs, the voices say. The establishment of a lobster-farming cooperative is received as a move aimed at that practical benefit.

On the other hand, from the export side, wariness about an all-in reliance on China is also heard. As a move to advance market diversification, an intent to widen sales channels to CPTPP-zone and stable-demand countries such as Japan, Canada, Australia, and South Korea is shared within the industry. Nam Cam Ranh's way of taking in domestic consumption by teaming with tourism is drawing attention as an alternative answer to the uncertainty of export markets.

There is also the viewpoint of being a bearer of the regional economy. The structure of running housing support for near-poor households and production support for 30 households under member leadership reflects the figure of agriculture as a local social foundation, where earning farmers also serve as uplifters of those around them.

What Japanese seafood and distribution people should read from this

First, the counterpart at the origin is changing from "producer" to "business operator." It is worth reorganizing communication on the premise of facing managers who design tourism, dining, and logistics, not fishermen who own cages. They have become counterparts with whom business talk—how to design not only price negotiation but processing level, shipping timing, and size specification—gets through.

Second, the China-dominated demand structure is double-edged for Japanese purchasing. In phases where China's robust demand pushes up local prices, Japanese buying is disadvantaged, but if shipments to China stall due to regulation, it flips to being easy to buy. Monitoring China's market moves and seizing the window when prices ease is realistic, agile procurement. For take-up as frozen or processed goods, it is easy to turn the trough of the market into an opportunity to expand purchasing.

Third, multi-business origins hold materials that sell together with "experience." Producers who hold farmstays and water taxis are easy to put onto the promotions of Japanese retail and restaurants as origins with story. There is room to productize the origin's story itself, not stopping at mere raw-material sourcing. On building the ground for shrimp farming, the shrimp-farming case in Quang Ninh province when compared, reveals the differences in strategy by region.

How to view the ripple to the whole market

Vietnam's seafood exports are expected to keep an expansionary trend in 2026 too, with the industry's export target put at a scale of US$11.5 billion. However, competition among supplying countries is intensifying, and long-term competitiveness hinges on investment in sustainable aquaculture, digitalized supply chains, and higher value-add, is the broad view. Nam Cam Ranh's multi-business model is consistent with the direction of competing on value-add and dispersion rather than aquaculture scale alone, and may spread horizontally to other origins.

For Japanese importers, this kind of origin sophistication means an increase in sourcing options. It moves from the stage of choosing origins by price alone to the stage of choosing by traceability, size specification, and year-round supply capability. On the size-by-size, species-by-species supply structure, you will also want to keep an eye on the trend of the black tiger of Ca Mau province, a mainstay alongside lobster.

Practical points you can use

If you are considering procuring Cam Ranh lobster, an entry point is first to look for organized shipping entities such as member clubs and cooperatives as your contact. Compared to individual cage operators, stability of specification and volume can be expected. Since the main size zone for China is the 150–300-gram green lobster, if you aim for a different size for the Japanese market, align specifications early.

If you watch prices, the rise and fall of exports to China and quarantine and regulatory moves are leading indicators. A phase where shipments to China clog up is an opportunity for the Japanese side to buy. At the same time, if you widen your view to seaweed-type materials beyond shrimp and lobster, high-value-add items such as Khanh Hoa province's organic sea grapes—other items of the same province—may also be suppliable from the same origin network.

In sum: look at the origin's "way of earning" to decide how to engage

Nam Cam Ranh's Billionaire Farmers Club showed the spread of a multi-business model in which one manager bundles aquaculture with tourism, dining, and logistics. The Japanese side's next actions can be organized into three. (1) For Cam Ranh lobster in Khanh Hoa province, list organized shipping entities such as cooperatives and member clubs and secure inquiry contacts. (2) Observe China export volumes and quarantine and regulatory news at fixed points, and in windows where the market eases, consider purchasing frozen and processed goods. (3) Evaluate origins that hold experiential resources such as farmstays as candidates for product development that includes story, not just raw-material sourcing. We have entered a stage of designing how to engage by looking at how an origin earns, not just the figures on a price list.

Sources

• Dân Việt「Một xã của tỉnh Khánh Hòa ra mắt câu lạc bộ nông dân tỷ phú với 11 thành viên」
• Dân Việt「Kho vàng trên biển Khánh Hòa: Nuôi tôm hùm, cá lồng thành tỷ phú nông dân」
• SeafoodSource「China’s shift toward premium seafood lifts demand for Vietnamese shrimp, lobster」
• SeafoodSource「Vietnamese seafood exporters pursue market, product diversification」