Turning the swamp into a snail farm, farmers count the animals to collect money

From the flooded land, Mr. Nguyen Thanh An converted it into a snail farming pond. Besides meat snails, this model also helps young farmers earn a high income from selling snail seeds.

The black apple snail farming model is being developed by Mr. Nguyen Thanh An in Xuyen An village, Duc Xuyen commune, Krong No district, Dak Nong province. Nearly 2 years ago, this snail farming area was a swampy area, flooded all year round, making wet rice production ineffective.

Mr. An said that snails are animals familiar to farmers’ lives. However, in the wild, black apple snails are increasingly rare due to the influence of people’s production activities and the strong development of yellow apple snails.

In 2022, Mr. An decided to start a business raising black apple snails by asking his parents to improve the family’s swampy field. This field used to produce rice but the economic efficiency was not high, some years it was even lost due to flooding and alum contamination.

“Starting to raise snails, I dug a pond to create a living environment for snails. I thought that to raise snails I would just need to drop seeds, but the results were not as expected. The snails grew slowly and died a lot, and the snail eggs were damaged. Rats were infested, so the first production was unsuccessful,” Mr. An recounted.

After his failure, Mr. An invested time and researched documents to understand the habits of this mollusk.

Mr. An realized that the living environment is the determining factor in the development of black apple snails. After that, Mr. An renovated the pond, treated the water source, and also lined the pond with tarpaulin to prevent rat damage.

After mastering farming techniques, from June this year, he started raising snails commercially and selling eggs.

Depending on the time, meat snails are sold by Mr. An for 70,000-80,000 VND/kg, snail eggs for about 700,000 VND/kg and seed snails for about 200 VND/snail/week old.

The owner of the snail farming model in Duc Xuyen commune added: “Demand in the southern wholesale markets is very large. The price of commercial black apple snails and consumer demand are relatively stable, many times, we There is no product to sell. In particular, in recent months, I have started breeding snails to sell, thanks to which the economic efficiency is higher.”

After nearly 2 years of raising snails, Mr. An realized that black apple snails are very sensitive to the weather, that’s why after every heavy rain, snail farmers have to spread lime powder to balance the pH in the water.

In addition, in order for snails to live in the most natural environment, patches of duckweed must be arranged in the pond so that the snails can avoid the sun and lay eggs.

Mr. An has invested in 5 snail farming ponds and plans to expand the farming area in the near future. Mr. An’s snail farming model is creating regular jobs for 2 local workers .

Mr. Ho Quoc Bao, Chairman of Duc Xuyen Commune People’s Committee, assessed: “Mr. Nguyen Thanh An’s snail farming model has exploited natural advantages and local surplus agricultural resources.

In the coming time, the locality also wants the model to develop and create jobs for local workers, thereby contributing to fulfilling the targets of the National Target Program on building new rural areas in Duc Xuyen commune. “.