Nguyen Van Luu, born 1988 in Nam  Dinh province, has over 10 years of experience as a chef at large hotels in HCM City. In 2019, he decided to return to his hometown to start raising eels. Now, his farm supplies eel fingerlings to nearly all northern provinces. 

Luu is the mastermind behind a famous TikTok channel, Lao Nong Vlog, which has over 5.2 million likes and more than 540,000 followers.

He told VietNamNet that he started with merchandise eel farming for sale. Later, he realized that there is high demand for eel breeders in the market, so he decided to breed eels himself to supply breeders the market.

Eels are raised in a field next to his house and raised in a semi-natural way in paddies, then they are hatched at the farm. Once they reach the standard size, eel breeders are sold to eel farming facilities.

The process from egg incubation to breeder sale lasts about three months. There are 500 fingerlings for each kilogram. Luu’s farm provides 200,000 breeders each crop, at the average selling price of VND35-40 million per 10,000 fingerlings.

As such, Luu can pocket VND700-800 million each season. The prices will be higher when there is a shortage.

Eels begin breeding from March to early December each year, so, Luu has 2-3 crops of breeder production crops annually. The rest of the time is spent by Luu to raise merchandise eels for consumption.

It takes three months only to complete a breeding season. However, Luu said breeding techniques are not simple, especially as weather conditions in the north are less favorable than the south. 

All the stages of the eel raising process need suitable techniques. The egg hatching rate at his breeding facility is up to 80 percent.

Appearing around two years ago, the TikTok channel has attracted over 5.2 million likes and more than 540,000 followers. Additionally, LaoNong Facebook page has attracted over 325,000 followers.

LaoNong Vlog is a channel that takes viewers back to childhood with a tranquil village and rustic dishes such as braised meat on harvest days, dried scad with starfruit, clams with vegetable soup, baked clay chicken, and rice balls with dried fish. Some videos have garnered tens of millions of views.

The main character in the videos is a farmer, Nguyen Van Phong, 64, the father of the ‘eel tycoon’ Nguyen Van Luu.

Tuan Nguyen