Nguyen Van Kim has raised big herds of buffaloes on land plots left among the high rise buildings in Thu Duc City for over 10 years.
The 63-year-old man used to take care of the buffaloes for other people before having enough money to buy a herd of his own. He uses plots in Thanh My Loi Ward as there are sites awaiting construction work.
Kim usually raises 20 buffaloes at a time and will sell them for meat after three years.
His daily work is taking the buffaloes to find grass in the morning and then takes them home in the afternoon.
The farmer brings his lunch with him.
In the afternoon, he usually guides the buffaloes to swim along a canal home, which takes less time than going on the road and does not affect people.
Kim and his wife set up a small house on a 5,000-square-metre land plot near Phu My Bridge.
This land belongs to a construction project but the owner has allowed them to temporarily use it.
Besides the small house, the farmer is growing rice, lotus and raising fish in the area.
While Kim raises 20 buffaloes and over 200 ducks, his wife works on the rice farm and lotus pond of nearly 2,000 square metres.
The couple said that they have five children who all want them to stop the hard farming work and move to the city centre to live with them but they still want to stay. "We feel more healthy and free living this way," Kim said.
Their children and grandchildren usually visit them during the weekend to enjoy the fresh air.
"We've lived on farm work our whole lives and we love the work," Kim said. "We feel sad when losing our land to urbanisation and will continue our work until these last land plots are taken for construction."