Adopting agricultural technologies has enabled the Central Highlandsprovince of Lam Dong to attain socio-economic growth and alleviatehunger and poverty, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has said.

Speaking at a meeting with provincial authorities on September16, he said the province has taken advantage of its climatic conditionsand fertile soil to benefit farmers and the companies in theagricultural sector.

In the province, advanced farmingtechnologies have been used on 35,000 hectares of land, 14,850 hectaresof it being under coffee, nearly 12,000 hectares under vegetables, 2,400hectares under flowers, and nearly 2,500 hectares under high-qualitytea.

Embracing high technology has helped Lam Dong farmersachieve higher revenues. On average they earn 400 million VND (19,000USD) from a hectare of vegetables, 800 million VND (38,000 USD) to 1billion VND (47,000 USD) from flowers, and 250 million VND (11,000 USD)from tea.

Around 6.3 percent of people in Lam Dong are classified as poor compared with 9 percent for the country as a whole.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanhsaid Lam Dong should choose the best tea varieties to grow because theprovince has the largest area under tea in Vietnam.

It should also expand the area under fruit trees using high-tech farming methods.

Nguyen Xuan Tien, Chairman of the provincial People's Committee, saidthe provincial Party Committee has issued a resolution on boostinghigh-tech agricultural development that also spells out specificstrategies.

Areas have been zoned for vegetables, flowers, andspeciality crops in 2011-15, especially for tea, coffee, and rice, aswell as for fish farming.-VNA