Our Story — building a home for people and wetland life

01 · Our beginnings

A farm idea that found its true home in Tram Chim

The project began in Hong Ngu in 2018 as Nông trại Tâm Việt. In August 2019, the team moved to Tram Chim, closer to the wetland ecology and cultural landscape that the project wanted guests to understand. Việt Mekong Farmstay began welcoming guests at its present location in June 2020.

The first years were practical and uncertain: preparing paths and simple accommodation, learning the behaviour of acidic soil and seasonal water, building relationships with farmers, and discovering what international guests genuinely valued. The farmstay’s present identity grew from that work rather than from a ready-made resort formula.

02 · A different economic choice

Use tourism to keep more of the landscape alive

VMF’s working land-use direction keeps tourism infrastructure deliberately limited, combines it with nature-led agriculture and reserves the largest share of the site for habitat and ecological buffering. This creates a slower commercial model: fewer guests at one time, longer stays, seasonal meals and experiences that must be confirmed rather than mass-produced.

Economically, the aim is not to sell the greatest number of room nights at the lowest price. It is to create higher-value stays in which accommodation, food, local knowledge, farm experience and carefully chosen journeys support one another.

• Small-scale accommodation rather than dense construction.
• Seasonal local food requested in advance.
• Three-to-seven-night stays that reduce rushed transport.
• Direct host contact so expectations and costs are clear before payment.

03 · Six years of habitat care

Biodiversity returned through patient, ordinary decisions

Since 2020, VMF has protected water surfaces, retained shallow wetland edges, encouraged lotus, wild rice and native vegetation, reduced chemical pressure inside the site and kept quieter areas for birds, fish and freshwater turtles. Habitat care is treated as daily operations, not as a decorative claim.

VMF’s working biodiversity inventory has recorded at least 200 plant species, 35 freshwater fish species and 20 bird species across the farm landscape. These are internal monitoring figures used to guide care; they are not presented as a substitute for a formal scientific census.

04 · Responsible-stay practices

Show the process, not only the word ‘green’

VMF connects habitat care with everyday hospitality. The practical direction is to prevent avoidable waste, use water and electricity carefully, keep construction density low, reduce chemical pressure and protect quieter, darker edges for wildlife.

These are operating practices and guest commitments, not an audited net-zero claim. VMF does not yet publish independently verified totals for waste, water, energy or carbon; dated evidence and methods will be added as monitoring becomes strong enough.

Evidence beyond our own words

Official records and independent reporting

Independent sources cannot prove every ecological outcome, but they can verify the farmstay’s location, public recognition, nature-first direction and development over time. VMF keeps these sources separate from its own working records.