Transparent environment needed for scientists

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been collecting comments from experts, scientists, businesses, localities and universities about the draft strategy for science and technology development and innovation in the agriculture and rural development sector for the period of 2021-2030.

At a workshop to collect comments on the draft held by the ministry in HCM City, Dr. Nguyen Anh Phong, Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development said that the draft was based on structure of the new National Science and Technology Strategy promulgated by the Prime Minister on May 11, 2022.

According to Dr. Phong, the draft aimed to develop science and technology, and to innovate the agriculture and rural development sector to truly become a key driving force for the industrialisation and modernisation of the agricultural and rural sectors.

The science and technology sector is expected to have enough potential and qualifications to create arguments and scientific products of high value.It is also required to selectively acquire and master typical technologies of the world to develop modern agriculture, clean agriculture, organic agriculture, associated with the development of the agricultural product processing industry, respond to climate change and connect sustainable agricultural development, improve the quality, added value, competitiveness of agricultural products, protect the ecological environment, increase income for people in rural areas, ensure food security and national defense security.

Phong mentioned five specific goals written in the draft , in which, the percentage of the value of agricultural products produced according to good or equivalent production processes shall be over 40 per cent; rate of results of science and technology tasks applied into practice/total number of tasks performed will reach over 90 per cent by 2025 and over 95 per cent by 2030.

Vietnam also expected to have 200 hi-tech agricultural enterprises with cooperation and linkage in chain production. The growth rate of added value of the agricultural product processing industry will reach an average of 8-10 per cent per year in the period of 2021 - 2030.

Regarding varieties, the cultivation industry is expected to ensure the use of more than 90 per cent of certified rice varieties and F1 hybrid seeds.

Forestry industry is expected to have tree varieties for afforestation with controlled origins reach over 90 per cent.

The livestock sector is expected to ensure the supply of technically advanced breeds in production for pigs at 95 per cent; poultry from 85-90 per cent, aquatic products 100 per cent of the demand for key aquatic species and breeds.Developing a synchronous value chainAt the workshop, some delegates said that the draft was still long, has not been detailed in the development of each field.

Therefore, it is necessary to summarise and set the priority order of the agriculture and rural development sector until 2030.In addition, some goals are set too high and are unlikely to be achieved in the next seven years.

It is necessary to focus on developing synchronous mechanisation in production of each field, each group of crops, each ecological region, each stage of plant growth and development.

At the same time, it is necessary to build a synchronous value chain development model, from input, production, preliminary processing, processing, transportation, to selling to the market and exporting, thereby improving high value of products of the agriculture and rural development sector.

 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Chau, former director of the Southern Fruit Tree Institute, said that the drafting committee needs to clearly identify the shortcomings of the main fruit trees to tackle. “We should not aim to lower the cost of seedlings, but aim to develop disease-free seedlings. In other countries, seedlings are much more expensive than in Vietnam”, he said.

Chau said that it is necessary to be further active in technology, intellectual property, and to link institutes and schools with enterprises.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huy Bich, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Agriculture and Forestry, Ho Chi Minh City, said that the ultimate goal of applying science, technology and innovation was to solve the problems of human resources, productivity, quality, and cost, on the basis of beneficiaries being people and businesses.

"To achieve these goals, it is necessary to solve the problem of pre-harvest mechanisation for Vietnam's key agricultural production - rice," he said.

According to Dr. Tran Xuan Hanh, Navetco Central Veterinary Medicine Joint Stock Company, the decisive factor for success in the task of preventing terrestrial animal diseases was how to master technology in studying the epidemiology of the disease, rapid diagnosis, with specific vaccines/biological products or antibiotics for disease prevention.

Therefore, there should be a research orientation to be proactive when the epidemic occured, he said. It was also necessary to build centres and institutes for research on emerging diseases, and invest in them in level 3 and level 4 research laboratories in Vietnam.

According to Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Environment under the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, the draft Strategy should have more breakthrough solutions, especially on the basis of assessing the achieved results, existing difficulties, lessons learned from the implementation of strategic tasks in the previous stage.

Therefore, it was important to improve the entire system of mechanisms and policies to create a fair legal environment, and untie scientists who can devote themselves to researching these issues. Scientific works were extremely important to improve production, she said.

"We accept risky researches and failure in S&T research and must improve transparency to create an ecosystem for dedicated scientists, creating scientific products that really have practical significance," she said.

"We need to have a policy for scientists so that scientists can contribute, bring scientific works of practical value in production, closely follow the reality of production. This is the core of the science and technology strategy in the coming time”, emphasised Thuy.