Despite holding three university degrees, Vietnamese mushroom grower Nguyen Tien Dat chose not to remain in the city. Instead, the 27-year-old returned to his hometown in the Mekong Delta to start a smart mushroom farm - now earning tens of millions of dong each month.
In the early hours of the morning, at a house beside a shrimp pond in Lich Hoi Thuong Commune (Can Tho City), Dat begins his day harvesting black termites mushrooms for delivery. After harvesting, he checks environmental data on his phone and adjusts the cooling and misting systems to keep the temperature between 25–28°C and humidity above 85%.
Dat has been running his high-tech mushroom farm since early 2024, following a lengthy period of trial and error. Dat graduated in automation and control engineering from Can Tho University of Technology during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He went on to study business administration at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City and high-tech agriculture at Van Lang University. After graduation, he briefly worked for a pesticide company in his hometown. But the harsh realities of climate change, salinization, and acidic soil in the Mekong Delta left him restless.
"Traditional farming has become increasingly uncertain. I wanted to apply what I've learned to build a more sustainable, weather-independent model right here in my hometown," Dat shared.
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