A majority of small farmers earn income disproportionately small to the amount of hard work they invest in working their farms. Some barely manage to eke out a living from their subsistence farms. They have to contend with various challenges like typhoons, flooding, drought, and plant diseases, not to mention unscrupulous middle men.
How will they cope with such meager income?
Employees engage in “sidelines.” Even businesses go into fields not necessarily related to their core business. So should farmers look for ways to diversify their activities and expand opportunities to earn, other than through mixed crop breeding.
Profitable side-business projects can take many forms. The more typical include honeybee culture, mushroom growing, cutflower production, and even aquatic ventures like tilapia culture, prawn farming, and catfish hatchery.
The Technology Resource Center has lined up more side-business opportunities which farmer-entrepreneurs may consider going into:
- Animal feed formulation Bonsai cultue
- Broiler production
- Duck-raising
- Game fowl breeding and conditioning
- Goat and sheep raised
- Home-based hydrophonics production
- High-value vegetable production
- Layer production
- Mango production and post-harvest handling and storage
- Ornamental plants production
- Practical landscaping
- Breeding and culture of freshwater aquarium fishes
- Intensive culture of tilapia in tanks
- Semi-intensive culture of milkfish
The TRC offers seminars for most of these business opportunities.
Inquiries may be be phoned in at 822 5087 and 822 9 712.
Photo: from www.talktvietnam.com
