Havesting rice with a combined havester (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Nearly 70 percent of agricultural machines are imported, mostly from Japan, China, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China), heard a September 22 conference on speeding up mechanisation in agriculture and agricultural machine manufacturing technologies.
Recently, agricultural mechanisation has seen rapid progress due to demand of production and the Government support, said Bach Quoc Khang from the Institute for Agricultural Electromechanics and Post-Harvest Technology. However, he held that the development is not sustainable and comprehensive yet.
It has only focused on rice cultivation in some stages, with low effectiveness, leading to high post-harvest losses, said Khang, adding that the domestic mechanic sector has yet to meet requirements of production, while there is a high demand for many agricultural machines, including sewing machine and combined harvester.
He noted that the number of machines used in agriculture has increased 1.6 times over the past 10 years. Currently, mechanisation in land tilling reaches 90 percent, planting and sewing 30 percent, and caring 60 percent.
Especially, mechnisation in the post-harvest stage remains low, resulting in high losses.
A Government decision on support for post-harvest loss reduction in agriculture has solved difficulties facing both farmers and businesses in the field, but it is a step backwards in developing the domestic mechanic sector, stated Khang.
Meanwhile, Chu Van Thien, also from the institute, stressed the importance of investment in manufacturing of agricultural machines, with support policies in finance, infrastructure and science and technology.-VNA
