Buffalo farmers have put the abandoned Kim Chung-Di Trach urban area in Hanoi to good use after it has laid abandoned for years.
The 170-ha Kim Chung-Di Trach project in Hoai Duc District has hundreds of houses which were expected to be sold at billions of dong at the height of Vietnam’s property bubble.
Kim Chung-Di Trach urban area
Now, the area has been covered with dense grass, offering an ideal place for local households to take their buffaloes there for gazing, bringing good incomes of hundreds of millions of dong a year.
Nguyen Thi Nghia who lives some two kilometres from the project, said she takes her family's herd of 30 buffaloes there for gazing every day. "The grass there helps us to save buying buffalo feed. Besides, buffaloes which are raised in such wide land plots often have better meat quality, so, they attract traders," she added.
Nghia's family used to live on farm work, but six years ago, when she went through Kim Chung-Di Trach urban area, she decided to sell her rice fields to buy buffaloes to raise on the abandoned real estate site. From the initial few, the herd now numbers 30, worth a total of around VND1 billion (USD47,600).
The buffaloes gazing at the urban area
A small buffalo bought for VND7-12 million can be sold at roughly VND25 million. Last Tet Holiday, her family sold 20 buffaloes to traders, bringing them revenue of hundreds of millions of VND.
It’s not only Nghia's family that are making use of the urban development folly, but also several others have taken advantage of Kim Chung-Di Trach urban area's thick grass to raise their buffaloes, cows and goats.
Nguyen Trong Hien said his family is also successfully raising eight cows in the area.
Nghia's buffaloes standing in a house at Kim Chung-Di Trach urban area
The urban area has become an ideal pasture for buffaloes
