Power of science needs to reach farmers

On the afternoon of August 22, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan had a working session with Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat to discuss the development and application of biotechnology to agricultural products to improve their quality and sustainability.

At the meeting, Minister Le Minh Hoan took the example of grapefruit from the United States that the two Deputy Ministers of Agriculture of this country gave him nearly six months ago to talk about technological advances.

Thereby, Minister Le Minh Hoan emphasized that the power of science and technology needs to reach farmers and become farmers' welfare. Science also needs to have an approach suitable for the agriculture sector and farmers that is simple and easy to apply. "Small advances spreading to a large area will become big progress," said Minister Le Minh Hoan.

Regarding the approach to scientific and technical advances, Minister Le Minh Hoan said that it is possible to first take advantage of the world's achievements before self-doing research and development (R&D) in order to shorten the application time to practice.

Agreeing with the opinions of Minister Le Minh Hoan, Minister Huynh Thanh Dat said that the two Ministries will cooperate and build a joint program to develop and apply biotechnology to agriculture. In addition, the two Ministries will jointly research and develop sanctions to apply biotechnological advances to agricultural production more favorably and efficiently.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, Director of the MARD’s Department of Science, Technology, and Environment, the growth rate of biotechnology worldwide in the period 2015–2020 is 1.3%, with an expectation of growing steadily over the next 5 years and more investment in R&D worldwide. In the agriculture field, modern breeding techniques, genetic engineering, and gene-editing techniques will provide new varieties with desirable traits such as disease resistance and drought tolerance; use nutrients to increase productivity and natural vitality; and increase water use efficiency.

“The legal environment that allows these techniques to be applied to production practice is very important, requiring the efforts of countries. In the world, countries are trying to achieve consistency in the legal framework related to products from gene-editing technology," said Director Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy.

On that basis, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy suggested that the two Ministries could cooperate to form funds to support scientific and technological staff in attending international conferences and seminars, short-term training sessions, and advanced training at different international laboratories of biotechnology. In addition, it is necessary to build task groups with bilateral or multilateral cooperation on biotechnology under specific mechanisms.

"We need to form research topics with foreign partners and state-owned enterprises having resources to buy copyrights on biotechnology, cooperate, and share on the win-win principle," added Ms. Nguyen. Thi Thanh Thuy.

On the MOST side, Mr. Nguyen Phu Hung, Director of the Department of Science and Technology for Economic Technical Branches, said that the Ministry had a program called "Application Research and Development of Biotechnology," in which the focus was on researching and applying biotechnology to serve the selection and breeding of crops, animals, and seafood meeting productivity, quality, and disease resistance.

In addition, the program also researches and applies scientific and technical advances to the production of vaccines and biological products for agricultural production.

Mr. Nguyen Phu Hung proposed to the MARD side that the two sides need to coordinate to build and form clusters of tasks according to value chains to serve the development of key products in the agriculture sector.

Director Nguyen Phu Hung also suggested that units of the two Ministries order national-level scientific and technological tasks on technology R&D for preserving and processing agricultural products, genetic resources, etc.

Representative of the enterprises that are applying biotechnology to develop agricultural products, Dr. Le Hoang The, Director of The Vos Ecosystem Co., Ltd., introduced the application of scientific and technical advances to make products related to red lingzhi mushrooms.

Sharing more deeply about biotechnology, Mr. The said that in this modern age, if we grasp the technology, we will grasp the market, and the access to today's scientific and technical advances is increasingly favorable.

Therefore, the Director of The Vos also shared his experience in associating with Vietnamese human resources working in the field of science abroad to share and update technology. Besides, Mr. The also proposed to participate in the protection of state management agencies for businesses and strengthen public-private cooperation to facilitate production and bring products to the international market.

"For example, The Vos is applying scientific and technical advances to research and produce new varieties with many advantages suitable for each locality to deploy production", said Dr. Le Hoang The.