Vietnam agriculture getting close to ‘the 5.0 challenge & chance’

On May 29, Theme 2 of the International Conference on High Quality Agriculture Vietnam 2022, organized by the Vietnam - Australia Innovation Network (NIC AU), took place in Hanoi in a hybrid format, connecting with many bridgepoints worldwide.

The theme’s name is "Application of technology 5.0 to innovate sustainable development of the agricultural industry and supply chain to improve the quality, distribution, and value of agricultural products in an effective and circular manner”.

Opportunities in line with set goals

Making the opening speech at the conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh believed that the industrial revolution 4.0 had widespread thanks to the efforts of many countries in digital transformation. This had led to the rapid development of smart and technology-centric cities. “However, in the context that the world is facing many global challenges such as the depletion of natural resources, lessening of cultivation acreage, earth’s warming, and growing economic disparity, it is very urgent to promote the application of scientific and technological advances in the economic sectors in general and agriculture in particular.”

Vietnam's agricultural industry is subject to tens of millions of farmers with limited production scale, low technology level, and low labor productivity. They are vulnerable and can be easily affected by the stormy development of industries.

“I believe the revolution 5.0 is a great opportunity for the agricultural industry when the application of modern science and technology goes hand in hand with producers specifically the tens of millions of farmers in Vietnam. They will be able to gain access to innovations and receive training to improve their skills, qualifications and capacity to adapt to new technologies. They will create multi-valued agricultural products both in terms of economy and society, thus increasing their income and improving livelihoods. This is also the sustainable development goal of Vietnam's agricultural industry in the new context," said Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh.

Mr. Vu Quoc Huy, Director of the National Innovation Center (NIC), Ministry of Planning and Investment, shared that in order to bring positive impacts to the community, NIC had connected hundreds of representatives, cooperatives, and businesses to attend the conference, listening and sharing ideas with domestic and international experts and scientists.

Participating in sync

Mr. Kenneth Tran, CTO of Koidra Company, said that Koidra’s driving force and motivation were gathered through solving global problems such as: the growing demand for food contrasting the increasingly limited natural resources; lack of professional agricultural technicians to serve the transition to polyhouse and greenhouse farming models; cultivation mainly based on experience instead of science and technology resulting in low production and economic efficiency; data and information being unconcentrated like the “4.0” or “5.0” topics Vietnam were aiming for.

Koidra has launched the Betafarm Project with the goal of building greenhouses in Vietnam as well as other countries in the region. “Vietnam has a lot of advantages in terms of resources and climate - an environmental area full of sunlight that is very suitable for greenhouse farming models. One more special thing is that the Vietnamese market is having a growing demand for high quality and clean agricultural products. The models giving high productivity will lead to more open export opportunities to Southeast Asian countries. Vietnam can change from an agricultural technology importer to a technology exporter.”

And explaining the process from the 4.0 Industrial Revolution to 5.0 Industrial Revolution, Mr. Ha Van Thang, Chairman of the Vietnam Agricultural Business Council said, “While Industry 4.0 is a combination of robots, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, and Big Data in an efficient, fast production and operation environment of factories depending entirely on technology, Industrial Revolution 5.0 focuses on cooperation between human and machine. Human intelligence will work in harmony with cognitive computing, thus enhancing worker skills and providing added value in production which lead to customization and personalization of commodity.”

In Mr. Thang’s perspective, innovation from Industrial Revolution 5.0 will be the foundation of circular economy. It is also one of the factors that help agriculture develop sustainably. “Circular economy should not be bound by space or scope. It should harbor widespread effects and positive social impacts where key organizations and businesses take the lead and farmers join along.”