The Institute of Science firmly stands in the market mechanism: Conquering farmers, the market automatically opens

Farmers are "bridges"

The Agricultural Sciences Institute for Southern Coastal Central of Viet Nam (ASISOV) is a public science and technology non-business organization under the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The institute’s function is to research science and transfer technology in agriculture, forestry, and rural development to serve the economic and social development of the South Central Coast.

According to Director Ho Huy Cuong, since 2007, the unit in particular and science non-business units in general have built an autonomous mechanism under Decree 115, followed by Decrees 16 and 54, and Decree 60 for the latest.

In the autonomous mechanism, in addition to a part of the budget allocated by the government, public science non-business units must also have an autonomous source of funding to ensure frequent expenditures and cover operations. The remaining required funding must be self-created by the unit from the scientific products, the unit’s brainchildren. Since the establishment of the autonomous mechanism, ASISOV has been no exception.

After building an autonomous mechanism, besides scientific and technological tasks at all levels, ASISOV has oriented its research toward adapting the market mechanism. This orientation aims to find a foothold by paying attention to the unit’s scientific products so that they meet the market’s needs.

According to Mr. Ho Huy Cuong, the market for agricultural scientific products is the practical demand in the production of farmers. The market nature of scientific products is like that. ASISOV is a public non-business unit with the function and mission of serving production in the field of agriculture; thereby, the direct users of the unit’s scientific products are farmers. When a scientific product is trusted by farmers, it proves that this product has convinced the market.

Director Ho Huy Cuong gave an example: If a farmer trusts to use a new rice variety selected and created by the research unit, it means that the rice variety has more superiorities than the rice varieties previously used by farmers, including superiority in rice quality, yield, resistance to pests and diseases, hardiness against falling, adaptability to climate change, etc.

But more importantly, when farmers use a rice variety on a large scale, that means rice mills are buying strongly. And when rice mills buy strongly, it means that this type of rice is being consumed strongly in the market. The unit produces that rice variety again, as per farmers' demand. The production of rice seeds is first to meet the farmers’ needs, and this work will then create a source of funding for the unit to be firmly autonomous in the market mechanism.

According to Mr. Ho Huy Cuong, the research works of agricultural scientists must first be directed to farmers. When a scientific product attains good quality, the market door will open widely for that product to come in.

"ASISOV identifies the market for scientific products as farmers in the South Central Coast and the Central Highlands. In the Central Highlands, the Western Highlands Agro-Forestry Scientific and Technical Institute is in charge of the long-term industrial plants, and the varieties of short-term crops such as rice, peanut, sesame, mung bean, cassava, etc. are our responsibility. In the context of operating in areas with severe weather and climate (storms, floods, and droughts often occur), our task is to research, select, and create plant varieties that are both yield- and quality-oriented and suitable to the production conditions of each region. By meeting the standards, our scientific products will not worry about not being able to firmly stand in the market mechanism, "said Director Ho Huy Cuong.

Scientific products come to life

In the context of the impacts due to climate change, the provinces of the South Central Coast are often threatened by drought, leading to a high demand for crop structure transformation. Especially converting rice production areas that often lack irrigation water to cultivating dry crops using less irrigation water to adapt to climate change.

Faced with the current situation, ASISOV has researched, selected, and created the peanut variety LDH.09 to serve the work of transforming crop structure in the provinces of the South Central Coast. Through actual production, peanut variety LDH.09 has not only contributed to the successful crop transformation in the South Central Coast but also created high income for farmers in hard areas.

For example, in Binh Dinh, in recent years, farmers in hard areas such as Cat Lam, Cat Hiep, Cat Hanh, Cat Trinh, and Cat Hai communes (Phu Cat district) have thrived on peanut variety LHD.09. Since 2016, Binh Dinh province has had about 400 ha of cultivated land using the peanut variety LDH.09, mainly concentrated in Phu Cat district and My Chau commune (Phu My district).

According to Mr. Luong Van Khoa, Deputy Head of the Phu Cat Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the past, farmers in the above sandy areas produced degraded peanut varieties that were both long-term and threatened by bacterial wilt, so the yield was very low. Since the appearance of the peanut variety LDH.09 created by ASISOV on the market, farmers have had access to this peanut variety, and after many years of production, many rural areas in the sandy land glow with a full life when mass producing this peanut variety.

LDH.09 is a salt-tolerant peanut variety with a large fruit volume and large seeds, meeting the needs of the fresh market segment. This is one of the advantages of LDH.09 compared to other varieties. "The peanut variety LDH.09 is suitable for the sandy and saline soils of Phu Cat district, with an average yield of over 4 tons/ha. Expanding the peanut growing area with the LDH.09 variety is one of the district's production development orientations," said Mr. Luong Van Khoa.

In parallel with variety selection and creation, ASISOV also completed the cultivation process for peanut variety LDH.09 on sandy coastal soil. The synchronous implementation of new varieties and suitable cultivation processes helps LDH.09 increase yield by 15%, reduce costs, and reduce irrigation water. The great advantage of peanut variety LDH.09 is its salt tolerance and better resistance to bacterial wilt than other peanut varieties. Or, the peanut variety LDH.01, also selected and created by the Institute, has been mass-produced for many years by farmers in Binh Dinh and Quang Ngai to serve oil processing because of its extremely high content.

ASISOV also has many scientific products on rice varieties that are trusted by farmers and strongly consumed by the market. For example, the rice variety BDR57 is being mass-produced by farmers to meet the quality rice market. Similarly, the BDR999 variety is also very popular with farmers because traders buy it strongly to supply the noodle processing market due to its high starch content. The short-term An Sinh 1399 rice variety can be produced in two crops per year, with a yield of 6.65 - 7.35 tons/ha, 2.9–4.4% higher than the average yield of mass varieties. This rice variety is being trusted by many local farmers to replace the old, degraded ones.

"Agricultural science units must, of course, create scientific products to serve agricultural production. But those scientific products must be used by farmers and accepted by the market to prove that they have satisfied the needs of society. When society has a high demand for a scientific product, the science unit creating that product has the conditions to generate funding to support the unit’s operation," said Director Ho Huy Cuong.