Promoting the process of digital transformation in agriculture

On the morning of March 30th, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh has worked with the Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association (VIDA) and listened to an overview report on digital agriculture.

In the restructuring project of the agriculture sector, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has specified that the two important pillars are science technology and production reorganization. Both of these problems are closely related to digital transformation.

“VIDA needs to construct a digital data system in agriculture, through which the management units, enterprises, cooperatives and farmers can be connected to build the value chain of agriculture products; attracting investment to agriculture”, said Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh.

In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to go into specific issues such as building map applications to look up soil information, hydrology, agricultural and fishery production quantity in the country and details of each province and city.

As stated by Mr. Nguyen Duc Tung - General Secretary of Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association, digital transformation is considered the effective “remedy” for Vietnam’s agriculture. The story of this matter is mentioned not only as a short-termed trend but also a seamlessly throughout journey to change the face of Vietnam’s agriculture.

In accordance with VIDA, the construction of the digital data system, which allows to store and administrate data of Vietnam’s agriculture, combining with the application that displays said data on GIS vividly and intuitively, is essential.

Vietnam's digital agricultural map system will meet the goal of continuously managing and updating data on soil, hydrology, agricultural products, forestry and fishery products in provinces and cities nationwide, thereby helps the state capital management agencies attain enough data and figures update to plan out macro strategies and schemes (including the planning of market search, planning of management policies, planning of crop areas,…).

The digital data system in agriculture will also help connect buyers and sellers, expand output markets, improve product value, and help enterprises doing business in the agricultural sector acquire objective, up-to-date and sufficient information to construct business strategies and plans.

Mr. Than Van Hung, Vice Chairman of Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association, has requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to direct and cooperate with the Department of Computerization (Ministry of Information and Communications), Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association and related units to develop Vietnam Agricultural Overview Report 2021.

At the same time, he also emphasized: "This report needs to be updated and published annually so that all of us can see the movement of digital transformation in agriculture".

This report will evaluate in an overall and honest way the reality of the digital transformation of agriculture from policy, technology, enterprise, product, planning, ... as well as its actual impact in the process of agricultural economic restructuring.

Furthermore, it is necessary to build a reliable set of documents to help the components of the agricultural ecosystem, especially the group of enterprises, investors, farmers, markets, … to have references for the most accurate assessment and judgment on digital transformation in agriculture, from which they will come up with suitable strategies for their units and organizations with the purpose to contribute positively to the modernization of Vietnam’s agriculture.

Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh welcomes the Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association and will join them to initiate the mentioned group of tasks to contribute to promoting the process of digital transformation in agriculture.