Mechanization helps farmers access 'precision agriculture'

Mechanization helps to increase the value of agricultural products

The opening ceremony of an international event in the field of mechanization named “Agritechnica Asia Live 2022” took place on the morning of August 25 in Can Tho City, The event was held with the theme of “Synchronous mechanization towards sustainable agriculture”. Agritechnica Asia Live 2022 attracted 4,000 farmers and hundreds of businesses, scientists, and managers in the agricultural sector.

Agritechnica Asia Live 2022 is an opportunity to trade advanced technology and techniques, as well as an opportunity to exchange and share among agricultural scientists, businesses, managers and farmers. This is a series of events that demonstrate the strength and importance of mechanization in agriculture. The event is especially meaningful in that the Mekong Delta region is launching a strategy for sustainable agricultural and rural development, which has opened up many new approaches in the field of mechanization.

At the opening ceremony of the event, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan emphasized that mechanization in agriculture must represent a vivid image and admirable story of the "barefoot engineers" - the farmers across the S-shaped strip of land that is Vietnam. They have a passion for technical research, tinkering with machines and equipment to make the farming process more convenient and optimal. Most importantly, mechanization helps farmers reduce production costs, labor, and improve the quality and value of agricultural products.

The Minister reviewed the state of smart farming models, technology application, and mechanization in Lai Vung mandarin orange growing area. Local farmers have boldly applied irrigation control system using mobile phone. Additionally, agricultural mechanical facilities in the Southwest region have researched, manufactured, assembled and customized suitable machines to improve productivity in accordance with local soil conditions.

Thanks to agricultural mechanization, combine harvesters, fertilizer machines, and sowing machines have appeared in the rice fields of the plains of Vietnam, gradually replacing the image of "the plow and the buffalo". As a result, Vietnam's agricultural sector has observed many significant and beneficial changes in the methods and practices of production as well as the mindset of farmers in approaching the markets.

Minister Le Minh Hoan affirmed that the policy of agricultural restructuring, sustainable agricultural development in association with new rural construction has been promoted by the Government, followed by various supporting policies such as: Credit and support policy for farmers to buy machinery and equipment for agricultural production; value-added tax exemption policy for the import of specialized machines and equipment in agriculture, among many other policies. Furthermore, training activities, labor training to use agricultural mechanized machinery and equipment, improvement of field infrastructure, aquaculture facilities, livestock and poultry raising are also subjects of great interest.

The Minister expects that the Agritechnica Asia Live 2022 event will be a forum for Vietnam's agricultural sector and Asian countries to have more opportunities to access techniques and technology in a synchronous manner, modern and suitable to the actual production conditions of the localities.

How to make mechanization more accessible for farmers?

With the current progress of technological development in agriculture, agricultural mechanization is not only aimed at productivity and output, but also gradually towards "precision agriculture", to seize new opportunities and take appropriate steps in improving the quality and value of agricultural products.

With “precision agriculture” based on the application of mechanization, it is possible to help farmers reduce costs, reduce environmental impact, increase market access, increase resilience, increase accessibility for small farmers. Thereby, creating favorable conditions for introducing new products, creating job opportunities in rural areas, and improving the benefits of consumers.

Mr. Alongkorn Ponlaboot, senior advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand, shares Thailand's expereince in mechanization application. Thailand has implemented "precision agriculture" technology by applying 4.0 technology, digital technology as a tool to connect farmers from upstream to downstream. The diplomatic cooperation between Vietnam and Thailand has created a foundation for agricultural development between the two countries.

Mr. Alongkorn Ponlaboot said that agriculture in Vietnam and Thailand is on the rise and the application of 4.0 technology is increasingly widespread. This will be an opportunity to promote further cooperation towards mitigating the impacts of food insecurity and natural disasters.

For agriculture in Vietnam and particularly the Mekong Delta region, the application of agricultural mechanization is not a separate solution or associated with a separate stage. The Minister said that agricultural mechanization can be applied effectively and synchronously for most production stages and it is the basis for creating and developing sustainable agricultural product value chains. This value chain requires linkages and cooperation between businesses, cooperatives and farmers. This issue raises a series of questions regarding how the value chain is organized, the role of the Government in providing information and public services as well as creating basic infrastructure to promote synchronous mechanization.

The Minister is concerned that the opportunity as well as farmers' and agricultural cooperatives' ability to access mechanization in production can prove to be challenging. Therefore, according to Minister Le Minh Hoan, the effective operation model of agricultural technical service centers, along with the "shared economy" solution, providing rental services of agricultural machinery, is a suggestion worth considering. Consequently, farmers or smallholder farmers can participate to save costs and allocate financial resources to other production stages.

Moreover, the orientation of "intellectualizing farmers" was also outlined by the Minister, which can be combined with training programs to improve knowledge and skills in applying technology; with the focus on smart technologies, precision technologies and environmental protection for users of machines and equipment in agricultural production.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan accompanied delegates and farmers on August 25 to visit production models and demonstrated machines in the field on an area of ​​22.5 hectares in Mekong Delta Rice Institute.

At the demonstrationa area, 7 businesses participated in the demonstration of mechanized models with advanced equipment such as: Combine harvester with tank and discharge hose, cluster seeding machine, wet cultivator with cultivator tray, cluster sowing machine, drones in drone agriculture and so on. The outstanding advantages of these machines help to reduce varieties, thereby reducing the amount of fertilizers and pesticides, reducing labor, limiting pests in the field, etc. which contributes to increasing rice production efficiency, reducing environmental impact and increasing income for rice farmers.

The Ministry will promote the application of mechanization and digital agriculture to transform sustainable agricultural production, and contribute to the transforming the agricultural production mindest into an agricultural economy mindset in Vietnam producers.