{"id":1407,"date":"2026-07-28T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T01:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/?post_type=industry_news&p=1407"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T01:50:00","slug":"hatinh-eel-outgrower","status":"publish","type":"industry_news","link":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/en\/industry_news\/hatinh-eel-outgrower\/","title":{"rendered":"The seedlings and sales channels she hands out after quitting accounting: how Ha Tinh swamp eel earns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hoang Thi Yen, a woman who left corporate accounting to return to her hometown, expanded mud-free swamp eel farming that she started from 15 composite tanks in Cam Binh commune, Ha Tinh province, to a scale of about 300 square meters, Dan Viet reported on 24 July 2026. About 100,000 fish for market and about 150,000 as fingerlings, shipping 12\u201315 tonnes a year at 100,000\u2013120,000 dong per kilogram (at 1 yen = about 162 VND, about 617\u2013741 yen). In the same 2026, in the Mekong Delta the same fish sank to the 35,000-dong level, below production cost, and in Can Tho City about 4,000 tonnes went unsold. What Japanese seafood buyers should read is not the number of fish but the point that she hands the surrounding farming households fingerlings, technique, and purchase as a single bundle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A woman who stepped down from accounting grew from 15 to 50 tanks in two years<\/h2>\n

According to Dan Viet, Ms. Yen spent many years in corporate accounting before returning home and turning to agriculture. The first thing she chose was pig farming, at a scale of about 100 head per cycle. But environmental-pollution problems dogged it, and she came to look for another path.<\/p>\n

The switch was to mud-free swamp eel farming. The paper conveys her reasoning that she judged there was potential in its modest investment amount, light environmental burden, and stable market demand. She began trial rearing with an acquaintance in early 2024 and built her own facility in early 2025. She installed 15 composite tanks of 5\u20136 square meters each on a site of about 100 square meters. A year later she added about 200 square meters, lining up 15 concrete market tanks and 20 fingerling tanks.<\/p>\n

The current stock is about 100,000 for market and about 150,000 as fingerlings. That 60% of the fish count is allocated to the fingerling side<\/strong> is the feature of this farm, and the figures show it is not a mere fattening farm. Annual shipment is 12\u201315 tonnes at a unit price of 100,000\u2013120,000 dong, so sales by simple calculation are 1.2 billion\u20131.8 billion dong (about 7.41 million\u201311.11 million yen). The paper only puts profit at several hundred million dong a year, and the exact figure is undisclosed (100 million dong is about 620,000 yen).<\/p>\n

Two years in which mud-free tanks spread across the province, and the decision to step down from pigs<\/h2>\n

Ha Tinh province is not a latecomer to mud-free swamp eel farming. A tally the province's rural news paper issued in September 2024 showed 32 mud-free facilities in the province, spread across nine areas led by seven in Hong Linh town. The same tally put 2024 market swamp eel production at more than 30 tonnes, with a harvest size of 4\u20135 fish per kilogram in 8\u201310 months. Early 2024, when Ms. Yen began trial rearing, was when mud-free tanks in the province were reaching a sizable number.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that her reason for stepping down from pigs was not price but environmental burden. Mud-free farming, which is complete with just water-filled tanks and has readable handling of manure and mud, makes sense as the destination of that retreat. A transition that secures an outlet first rather than fighting on capital investment exists in other provinces too, and the case of someone who moved from being a mechanic to contract tilapia farming is close (A 34-year-old who quit as a mechanic, toward full-purchase contract tilapia farming in Thanh Hoa<\/a>\uff09\u3002<\/p>\n

On technique the paper writes only four things: selecting good fingerlings, securing clean water at a proper pH, acquiring rearing technique for each growth stage, and observing health daily to catch disease early. Operating conditions such as water temperature, feeding frequency, and water-change frequency do not appear in the article.<\/p>\n

The 2026 fault line: the Mekong below cost, Ha Tinh at 617 yen per kilogram<\/h2>\n

Where this farm's figures bite is when the 2026 swamp eel market is lined up. As the seafood specialist media Tepbac reported on 24 April 2026, the price of grade-1 product (4\u20135 fish per kilogram) fell to 35,000\u201342,000 dong, while average production cost was 50,000\u201365,000 dong. That is a level of 15,000\u201325,000 dong of loss for every kilogram sold. In Can Tho City, which VOV reported on the 22nd of the same month, the city farmers' association chairman Nguyen Van Su explained that about 4,000 tonnes across the city were stuck past their optimal shipping time, and called on the city to begin arranging buyers. The city's farming households number about 1,900, with an area of more than 18 hectares.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Area \/ point in time<\/th>\nMarket swamp eel unit price (per kg)<\/th>\nYen conversion<\/th>\nAccompanying data<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Cam Binh commune, Ha Tinh province \/ Ms. Yen's farm (July 2026)<\/td>\n100,000\u2013120,000 dong<\/td>\nabout 617\u2013741 yen<\/td>\nShips 12\u201315 tonnes a year, 100,000 for market and 150,000 fingerlings<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ha Tinh province overall (September 2024, provincial rural paper)<\/td>\n150,000\u2013160,000 dong<\/td>\nabout 926\u2013988 yen<\/td>\n32 mud-free facilities, 2024 production over 30 tonnes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mekong Delta grade-1 product (April 2026, Tepbac)<\/td>\n35,000\u201342,000 dong<\/td>\nabout 216\u2013259 yen<\/td>\nAverage production cost 50,000\u201365,000 dong (about 309\u2013401 yen)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Can Tho City (April 2026, VOV)<\/td>\n38,000\u201340,000 dong<\/td>\nabout 235\u2013247 yen<\/td>\nAbout 4,000 tonnes stuck, about 1,900 farming households, more than 18 hectares<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n

Ha Tinh's unit price is nearly three times the Mekong's. Still, the province is not unscathed either: against 150,000\u2013160,000 dong in September 2024, Ms. Yen's unit price is 100,000\u2013120,000 dong, down about 30% in two years. The speed of the collapse differs by area<\/strong>\u2014that is close to the real picture of this fish in 2026.<\/p>\n

What the province's front-runners price is not meat but fingerlings<\/h2>\n

Around Ms. Yen are several operations that ran ahead with the same structure. Pham Ngoc Dung (born 1990), whom Bao Ha Tinh reported in January 2026, has 100 composite tanks in total across three sites, selling 60\u201370 tonnes a year at about 100,000 dong per kilogram for total sales of about 6.6 billion dong a year (about 40.74 million yen), with a profit margin estimated at about 40%. But what the paper writes alongside is rather the fact that he supplies about 3 million fingerlings a year and directly transfers fingerlings and technique to more than 50 households in Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces.<\/p>\n

A fingerling-specialist example the paper reported in May 2026 points the same way. Nguyen Van Truong of Truong Luu commune places 27 tanks over about 300 square meters, supplying an average 7 tonnes of meat and about 600,000 fingerlings a year for sales of more than 1 billion dong (more than about 6.17 million yen). Dang Van Cuong of the Thinh Phat fingerling farm has more than 100 tanks, selects brood individuals in Vinh Long province and brings them to Ha Tinh, and runs everything from hatching to rearing in-house. Taking fingerling-production technology into one's own operation is the key point, is the paper's summary.<\/p>\n

What Ms. Yen does is the same, though at a smaller scale. Dan Viet notes that she supplies several hundred thousand fingerlings a year and conducts linkages through technical support and product purchase with many farming households in the province. That groups frequently come to observe is also more naturally read as coming to see not the meat but the fingerlings and operating procedures. The way of not hoarding technique but distributing it to the surroundings to fatten the producing area overlaps with the type a Can Tho durian farmer demonstrated (Don't fence off the technology: the \"Billionaire Farmers Club\" built by Can Tho durian farmers<\/a>\uff09\u3002<\/p>\n

The seat the Japanese buyer should take is not in front of the tanks but beside the fingerling supplier<\/h2>\n

This is where the procurement side's story begins. Ha Tinh province's mud-free swamp eel is small in scale per household. Ms. Yen at 12\u201315 tonnes a year, and even Mr. Dung, outstanding within the province, at 60\u201370 tonnes. By the lot a Japanese importing trading company usually handles, contracting with one household does not fill the volume.<\/p>\n

If there is still value in viewing it as a producing area, the basis is that the source of fingerlings and technique is unified into one<\/strong>. A sizable number of households receive fingerlings from a supplier like Ms. Yen or Mr. Dung, raise them by the same procedure, and return them to the same partner down to purchase. When making a homogeneous lot from dispersed small-scale farming, the greatest obstacle is not volume but the unevenness of procedure, and in this producing area the fingerling supplier shoulders that obstacle.<\/p>\n

Put into practice, the partner to approach is not the end household that holds the tanks but the side that puts out fingerlings and also holds the purchase. What to ask is not the volume per cycle. How many linked households there are, and of those how many are on the same procedure. Where the brood individuals for the fingerlings are drawn from (if brought from Vinh Long province, the producing area connects to the south). How far the province's shipping-size guideline of 4\u20135 fish per kilogram in 8\u201310 months is met across linked households. Ask the end household and no answer comes back.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that this farm is heading toward processing. Dan Viet writes that, in parallel with expanding scale, Ms. Yen has a plan to research processed goods using swamp eel and launch her own brand. Fresh swamp eel faces a high acceptance hurdle on the Japanese side, so the arena for negotiation becomes a processed form. How this fish enters Japan and in what form is organized in a separate article (A different thing from the midsummer eel kabayaki: the real picture of Vietnamese swamp-eel exports and mud-free tanks<\/a>\uff09\u3002<\/p>\n

In a producing area expanding too fast, purchase linkage is starting to become a breakwater<\/h2>\n

On the 2026 Mekong fall, Tepbac cites as the main cause that conversion to mud-free farming advanced without planning during the high-price period, so supply greatly exceeded demand. It also writes the sequence in which panic-selling of unmanageable inventory pushed prices down further. Mud-free tanks have a low entry barrier. Low means anyone can enter when prices are good, and no one can escape when they are bad.<\/p>\n

In this context, the meaning of Ms. Yen and Mr. Dung putting out purchase as a set, on top of fingerlings and technique, changes. Because the output of those who received fingerlings can be grasped, they can read the producing area's overall supply and adjust fingerling shipments. From the end household's view, there is a taker even when prices collapse. That 4,000 tonnes lost their outlet in Can Tho can also be explained by the producing area lacking an actor to carry this function.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason Ha Tinh's unit price keeps nearly three times the Mekong's even after falling 30% in two years may lie in this linkage structure. But area-by-area trade data is not disclosed, and no figures exist for the scale of linkage beyond Mr. Dung's more than 50 households. If entering negotiations, this is what to confirm first.<\/p>\n

Checklist when approaching Ha Tinh swamp eel<\/h2>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Item<\/th>\nDetails<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Operator \/ location<\/td>\nHoang Thi Yen (former corporate accountant) \/ Cam Binh commune, Ha Tinh province<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Facilities<\/td>\n15 composite tanks (5\u20136 square meters each, about 100 square meters) + an added about 200 square meters with 15 concrete tanks and 20 fingerling tanks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Stock<\/td>\nAbout 100,000 for market \/ about 150,000 fingerlings<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Shipment \/ unit price<\/td>\n12\u201315 tonnes a year \/ 100,000\u2013120,000 dong per kg (about 617\u2013741 yen)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Profit<\/td>\nSeveral hundred million dong a year (100 million dong = about 620,000 yen). The range is undisclosed<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Provision to surrounding households<\/td>\nSeveral hundred thousand fingerlings a year, technical support, linkage through purchase<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Future plans<\/td>\nScale expansion and own-brand development through research on swamp eel processed goods<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Province's shipping-size guideline<\/td>\n4\u20135 fish per kilogram in 8\u201310 months (September 2024, provincial rural paper)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Contact \/ trading window<\/td>\nUndisclosed<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n

The figures are as of the reporting date, and unit prices move month to month. Pinning down both the province's and the Mekong's market prices before negotiating makes it easier to judge whether an offered price is reasonable.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/h2>\n

Viewed as a producer of 12\u201315 tonnes a year, one farm in Cam Binh commune, Ha Tinh province, is small. Viewed as a supplier that puts out several hundred thousand fingerlings a year, hands over technique, and even takes purchase, its positioning changes. While 4,000 tonnes stagnate in the Mekong in 2026 and sell below cost, Ha Tinh keeping to the 100,000-dong level per kilogram is unlikely to be unrelated to there being several such hub-like actors in the producing area.<\/p>\n

The next move is to identify several operations in Ha Tinh province that put out fingerlings, and to ask about the number of linked households, the degree to which procedures are unified, and whether processed goods exist. Fresh export to Japan faces high barriers, and if talks are to come together it will be in a processed form. An operation like Ms. Yen's, which has own-brand processed goods at the research stage, is a reasonable partner to begin contacting now.<\/p>\n

References: D\u00e2n Vi\u1ec7t<\/a>\uff0fB\u00e1o H\u00e0 T\u0129nh<\/a>\uff0fB\u00e1o H\u00e0 T\u0129nh<\/a>\uff0fN\u00f4ng th\u00f4n m\u1edbi H\u00e0 T\u0129nh<\/a>\uff0fTepbac<\/a>\uff0fVOV<\/a><\/small><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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