Hanoi (VNA) – The Government of Vietnamis committed to implementing initiatives of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS),including those on high-tech organic agriculture, said Prime Minister NguyenXuan Phuc.

Addressing the plenary meeting of the GMS BusinessSummit in Hanoi on March 30, Prime Minister Phuc also pledged to create afavourable environment and put in place preferential regulations for investmentin advanced technology, supporting industries and hi-tech organic agriculture.

Taking advantage of Industry 4.0

Science-technology is a path to green and high-valueagricultural development, Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Nguyen Xuan Cuong said in his speech at an agricultural session inthe framework of the GMS Business Summit.

The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) presents anopportunity for GMS nations to boost hi-tech agriculture, in terms ofartificial intelligence to increase automatic production, thus reducing labourforce and costs. It also allows biotechnology to create climatechange-resilient crops and high-yield varieties, remote sensing technology tomanage floods in river basins and Nano-material technology to create saferfertisers and pesticides.

The Government of Vietnam has issued several policies andincentives to facilitate the flow of investment in hi-tech agriculture, thusachieving food security and improving the quality of farm produce. In 2013, theGovernment approved a five-year restructuring plan for agriculture, with avision to 2030, identifying science and technology as the foundation to createbreakthroughs for the sector.

In 2015, then Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved a masterplan, under which the country expected to have 200 hi-tech agriculturalbusinesses and build 10 hi-tech agricultural zones by 2020.

Since then, groups like TH True Milk, Vingroup and Duc LongGia Lai have invested in hi-tech agriculture. Foreign projects have alsobrought cutting-edge technologies from hi-tech agricultural nations, includingIreland, Japan, Israel and the Republic of Korea, to help produce products meetingVietGap, GlobalGap and international organic food standards.

TH True Milk Group is one example of the new large-scale investment in agriculture, particularly in livestockbreeding, with its farms totalling nearly 50,000 cows, producing about 500tonnes of milk per day. The group was listed as Asia’s biggest concentrated andhi-tech dairy farm in the Asian Book of Records.

Taking advantage of the Government’s new National LivestockDevelopment Strategy and prioritising large-scale farming, the group scaled upits investment in hi-tech dairy farming from 350 million USD in 2012 to morethan 1.5 billion USD in 2017.

TH farms are supported by international technical consultantsand high technology from New Zealand, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, inthe stages of herd management, financial management, water filtration, wastewatertreatment, processing and packaging, according to Ngo Minh Hai, Chairmanof the TH Group.

The US’s agriculture producer Cargill Vietnam was establishedin Vietnam in 1995. Over the years, the company has built 11 animal foodprocessing factories across the nation.

Cargill Vietnam Managing Director Stoney Su, said his companyhas applied advanced technology to produce hi-quality products for livestockand aquaculture and to minimise volatility in farming.

Cargill Vietnam set up satellites to monitor crops to helpcontrol impacts of climate change and extreme weather on farming and cropharvesting.  Advanced technology helpscontrol crop diseases to ensure food safety and increase productivity.

A data centre has been established to follow and predictanimal growth and nutrition needs, and produce additives for animal food toenhance animal health.

Yanmar Company, a leading group in farming machines, is a Japaneseinvestor with hi-tech agricultural projects in Vietnam.

Takeo Matsubara, Senior Project Manager, Yanmar’s CorporatePlanning Division, highlighted the changes technology has made in agriculture, sayingthat nowadays, 95 percent of Mekong Delta farmers harvest their rice usingmachines.

He said agricultural technologies help reduce labour forceand costs, post-harvest losses while improving the value of agriculturalproducts. Japan uses robots to do farming, Takeo said, adding that his companywants to bring more agricultural machines and technology to Vietnam to helpboost hi-tech agriculture.

High technology fuels agricultural exports

Vietnam’s agricultural sector has recorded remarkableachievements, making it among the world’s biggest farm producers and exporters.

The country earned 36.37 billion USD from exportingagro-forestry-aquatic products in 2017, a new record for total turnover ina year. Of which, the export value of key agricultural products is estimated toreach 18.96 billion USD, up 15.7 percent from 2016.

According to Dang Hoang Giang, President of the VietnamCashew Association (VINACASS), Vietnam’s cashew nuts are the biggest hardcurrency earner, raking in 3.62 billion USD in 2017. Vietnam has become one ofthe world’s biggest producers and exporters of cashew nuts, with its marketshare accounting for 60 percent of the global cashew nut exports.

Giang said technology plays an important role in increasingthe value of agricultural products. Since 2008, technology has made arevolutionary change in cashew nut processing, resulting in robust cashewexports. Industry 4.0 ideas are crucial for cashew nut processing, in terms ofestablishing a processing chain and automation, to ensure quality and foodsafety standards. Technology has helped halve the time and labour force neededto process cashew nuts.

Giang compared the sector’s growth rate to jet speed, addingthat with the breakthrough of Industry 4.0, such as the Internet of Things(IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the sector can travel at missile speed.

However, he also stressed the need for developing large-scalefields and specialised crops to ensure efficient application of technology inproduction and processing, saying: “We have to think about the mechanism toensure production organisation, planning, large-scale fields, otherwise wecannot use airplanes for watering or pesticide spraying on small-scale fields.”

Building on GMS agricultural value chains

Agriculture is the backbone of the GMS economies, involving morethan 60 percent of the subregion’s nearly 340 million people. The sectordirectly supports the livelihoods of nearly 200 million people engaged insmall-scale farming.

The Strategy for Promoting Safe and Environment-FriendlyAgro-Based Value Chains in the GMS, endorsed in 2017 sets out goals totransform GMS agriculture systems into leading global suppliers of safe andenvironment-friendly agricultural products.

The Core Agriculture Support Programmes, implemented from2011-2015, helps guide regional cooperation in the agriculture sector. Itaddresses issues on expanding cross-border trade in agri-food products, climatechange mitigation and adaptation and promotion of inclusive supply chain toenhance food security.

It also helps increase producers’ access to internationalagricultural value chains and promote environmentally-friendly agriculturalpractices.

In the joint statement adopted at the sixth GMS Summit heldin Hanoi on March 31, GMS leaders agreed that the programme benefits farmers,rural women and small- and medium-sized enterprises, thereby addressingpoverty, reaching marginalised groups and increasing the reach of inclusivedevelopment.

Stoney Su, Managing Director of Cargill Vietnam, highlightedthe subregion’s high-quality labour force, saying that the GMS can besuccessful with a community-based economy. Despite small-scale production, technologycan help small players get involved in and win a big game by connecting themwith resources.

TH True Milk Chairman Ngo Minh Hai also highlighted theparticipation of household farmers in hi-tech agriculture, saying that the group’shigh technology application requires heavy training for managerial staff,workers, small-scale farming and cooperatives outsourcers.

TH True Milk has worked with households and cooperatives toensure they grow grass and raise diary cows in line with the company’srequirements. Training courses and technical assistance are offered to farmers,introducing them to technologies in their farming process, while giving themsustainable incomes.

The HCM City-based Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat has made wavesworldwide with Vietnamese chocolate brand Marou, which was described on the NewYork Times as the world’s most exquisite chocolate bars and “the best chocolateyou have never tasted.”

Samuel Maruta, Co-founders of the Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat saidhis company uses Vietnamese cacao beans to make chocolate. Their single-origindark chocolate bars are fully made in-house from cacao beans purchased fromlocal farmers.

“We support small scale farming by work directly withfarmers. We go to their farms, see ourselves monthly, give them a long-termguarantee of prices and quantity, so they can be secure in the future farming.That way, we create a trustful relationship between firms and farmers,” saidVincent Mourou, Co-founders of the Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat.

The company has helped put Vietnamese cacao on the internationalmap, with numerous headlines on international mass media, including the NewYork Times, Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal, Monocle Magazine, LeFigaro Magazine, TF1 and France 2.

Ousmane Dione, Country Director of the World Bank in Vietnam,affirmed that the agricultural sector continues to be the key factor foreconomic growth and sustainable development of the GMS nations. Regionalnations need to ensure the sector will be competitive, adaptive to climatechange and integrate into regional and global supply chains.

Vietnam has integrated in several global value chains and canincrease its added value by policy reforms and initiatives in the fields oftransport, services, border procedures and regional integration, heaffirmed.-VNA