Let’s go hand in hand on the agricultural ‘train’ No
Doing digital farming, farmers win big
Coming from a family with a tradition of farming, Dang Duong Minh Hoang in Phu Van commune (Bu Gia Map district, Binh Phuoc province) is too familiar with the image of a hard-working farmer who “sells his face for the land” all day long. , sell your back to heaven” but the effect is not high, life is still difficult. This is also the reason why when returning from France to his homeland to continue the family business, Hoang decided to become a “population farmer”, starting from the native avocado tree.
Applying the method of growing organic plants, absolutely no chemical drugs are used, so Hoang needs to closely monitor the tree’s development to have the most effective care options. That is the motivation for Hoang and his colleagues to develop the AutoAgri app (application) with the aim of monitoring the entire garden through smart devices.
Caring for trees is fully automated through apps on smartphones, so the entire 12-hectare avocado farm is almost absent of farmers. Hoang can sit anywhere, even sitting in the US can still water, fertilize … for each plant on his farm with “touches” on his smartphone. Therefore, at the avocado farm, Hoang only uses 2 workers to check the machinery in the garden.
Pointing to the avocado tree with a QR code attached, Hoang said it was the code to access the “digital diary”. Through this digital diary, consumers will know the types of fertilizers used, the time of fertilization, the date the product was harvested, the means of transportation to the store, supermarket, the standard of the avocado…
“Two years ago, even though the Covid-19 pandemic sometimes paralyzed the market, and agricultural products had to be rescued, “Ong Hoang’s avocado” was still sold well at a high price,” Hoang said and revealed, from the tree. avocado, he earns about 8 billion dong/year.
Unlike Hoang, who has been a digital farmer since the first day of his start-up, old farmer Dang Van Bay in Thanh Phong commune (Thanh Phu district, Ben Tre province) after 20 years of raising shrimp by traditional methods, has switched to high-tech. closed. In 2020, he decided to digitize shrimp ponds.
Talking about his 36-hectare pond system, he said, the shrimp pond is equipped with a feeding machine system, an automatic water treatment system with an accurate concentration meter. He or the worker will monitor through the apps installed on the smartphone. Every day, just go to the app with a few “touches”, the machines work at the same time, the shrimp are fully eaten, in the right dose.
“The same goes for checking the size of the shrimp. I just need to catch the shrimp and put it in the water, go to the app to take pictures of the shrimp in the pot and it will automatically give the exact weight of the shrimp. Calculating the standard shrimp size will be more convenient for trading, “he said.
“This year, the cost of shrimp farming has increased, but with 36 hectares of pond area, I still make a profit of about 17 billion VND. Last year, I also earned a profit of up to 25 billion dong,” said Bay.
Digital agricultural “train” accelerates
In the middle of 2021, during the conference on digital transformation of the agricultural sector, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan once said: “The world is constantly moving, while we have missed many trips. ship. Now, we are on the platform again on a new train called “digital conversion”. Let’s go hand in hand on this train to go further.”
In fact, up to now, the digital agricultural “train” is gradually accelerating. The models of growing vegetables, raising shrimp, raising chickens with smartphones, or fields without steps … appear more and more. From the reverse region to the lowland, from the North to the South, the digital transformation farmer no longer “looks at the sky, looks at the earth, looks at the clouds” but relies on… digital data. Even through a smartphone, they can sell agricultural products globally.
In June this year, the livestock industry database and information system was officially deployed. This is one of the first “bricks” to create the foundation for the digital transformation of the agricultural industry. Because, the data system is an important basis for improving the management and administration capacity of state management agencies and organizations to develop livestock according to the orientation, signals, and needs of the market. from time to time, strictly control the quality and safety of livestock food in order to improve the value and competitiveness of livestock products.
Immediately after that, the Information System and Database for granting and managing planting area codes were also put into use. This system contributes to solving the problem of creating “right, enough, clean, alive” in planting area data, both in terms of time of sowing, harvesting, yield, quality, traceability, and requirements. market demand, price… Since then, gradually change the method from “manual management” to “management based on digital technology”.
Although Vietnam is a country with strengths in agriculture, the export turnover of agricultural products in 2022 set a historical record when reaching 55 billion USD, but, with 7 million plots of fields and 9 million farming households, agriculture is still also has 3 “curses” – fragmentation, smallness and spontaneity. Minister Le Minh Hoan said that digital transformation will make all information transparent and gradually erase the “black holes” of the agricultural industry.
The Minister noted that in order to do digital transformation, one must see the real need when each person enters a new environment and space, which is the digital space. We change awareness, see passion, joy, and benefits from digital transformation that are creeping into every corner of our production life. But we also have to connect, increase the value of digital transformation to create profits many times higher than increasing output.
Inner peace
| “New farmer” Dang Duong Minh Hoang owns Thien Nong farm with a total area of 50 hectares, of which 30 hectares of rubber, 8 hectares of pepper and 12 hectares of avocado. His farm uses drones and many other digital technology applications such as AutoAgri app, blockchain technology… |
(Posted in the Vietnam Post newspaper, issue of Xuan Quy Mao 2023)
