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working for THMilk has given him a gold-
en opportunity to apply what he learned
during his four-years of study in Israel.
“I should have worked for Israel’s
Afikim group supporting TH Milk’s tech-
nology. But TH Milk attracted me be-
cause of its fame and positive pervasion
among the public,” Tue says.
In 2010 when I first visited TH Milk,
the earth-rammed roads to the resi-
dential areas around it were deserted.
The locals earned their living mostly by
cultivating cassava and rice.
However, everything has changed.
The roads have been asphalted, while
the residential areas have many shops,
restaurants and motels. Schools and
clinics have also been upgraded. Many
locals who used to be farmers have
become TH workers using the world’s
most modern farming technology.
55-year-old Hoang Thi Hoa from
Son Lien hamlet says one of her sons
is working for the company with good
pay. Also, 61-year-old Nguyen Thi Diem
says while her daughter is working for
TH Milk, her three sons have opened
workshops repairing automobile tyres
for the company. “Our monthly incomes
have doubled,” Diem says.
TH Milk’s chairwoman Thai Huong
also reports that the local economy is
now far more buoyant: “High technol-
ogy has raised the average per-hectare
annual income of $3,365 to $24,000-
$72,100 thanks to the cultivation of
grass, sunflowers and kaoliang.”
STATE-OF-THE-ART PRODUCTION
In order to produce clean milk, all
production stages, from cultivation to
packing, are controlled by machines
with a total of over 1,200 workers.
For example, the company has
two grass-cutting machines. Each one
can cut and bind 500 tonnes of grass
daily, equivalent to the labour of 800
strong young people. Also, the com-
pany has many watering systems, each
about 450 metres long. Each system
can be operated by one person and can
replace the labour of about 10,000.
One of the most interesting things
about the project is that all the cows are
treated gently. Besides being bathed
every day, they are fed with special
imported feeds and clean water while
symphonies play. During their life here,
each cow wears an electric chipset on
their foot. This equipment measures the
cow’s health and milk, and will transmit
all this information to computers.
Some 1,000 tonnes of feed is made
every day and the feed menus differ for
cows with different health conditions.
Meanwhile, the clean water and
waste water treatment facilities also
obey all environmental protection
standards with the world’s most mod-
ern technology. They are all controlled
by master computers based in Israel
and the Netherlands.
“In order to have fresh and clean
milk, we use Israeli know-how and tech-
nology in raising dairy cows, while us-
ing veterinary management and milk
processing technologies imported from
New Zealand and Germany. These
technologies are both manipulated by
Vietnamese and foreign experts,” Thai
Huong says.
TH Milk’s total revenue topped $96
million last year, and is expected to in-
crease to $178 million this year before
rising further to $1.1 billion by 2017.
Huong says that this project has
been hailed by the government as Viet-
nam’s most successful model of raising
dairy cows and making clean milk.
The model is the result of harmo-
nization between the state, enterprise
and the people.
TH Milk general director Gil Inbar
says he devotes all his zeal to helping
the company have the best milk, and
create energy for all the staff.
“All staff must feel happy when
working at TH Milk and all locals must
feel happy at the operation of the pro-
ject here. I like working here as all my
aspirations can be made possible. It has
taken nearly three years for this project
to come to fruition, while it would take
about 10 years for other investors in the
world to implement the same project,”
Inbar says.
Like many other foreign experts
here, he has got used to Vietnamese
food and cultural traits. He can even
use the local language fluently. “Under-
standing more about people here means
we can reap bigger rewards and contrib-
ute more to their livelihood,” he says.
timeout
EXPAT LIFE
FARM
Advanced European technology such as this sprinkler system is being
deployed in Vietnam for the first time by TH Milk