Phu Tho: digital transformation in agriculture – key to breakthrough

Illustrative image (Photo: ictvietnam.vn)

Phu Tho (VNA) – The northern province of Phu Tho considers digital transformation in agriculture a key to improving production efficiency and farmers’ income, expanding markets and promoting consumption of farm produce.

Tran Tu Anh, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, affirmed that sci-tech application and digital transformation in agriculture are inevitable requirements.

The province is now home to 166 pomelo growing areas covering more than 2,600ha, 70 tea growing areas on a total site of 5,800ha, and 33 banana farming areas spanning over 1,000ha. It has also granted 41 codes for cultivation areas with nearly 1,500ha dedicated to banana, pomelo and vegetables. Over 3,000 ha of pomelo have been cultivated towards safety production practices, with 78% of main crops applying pest management techniques. Additionally, 25 cooperatives and 82 farms in the province have adopted advanced and high technology in their production.

Furthermore, the department has successfully transferred many high-yield and high-quality crop and livestock varieties for production and applied tissue culture methods to various agricultural and forestry crops, resulting in practical efficiency.

It came up with a plan to step up digital transformation in agriculture in order to increase the value of agricultural products, save costs and protect the environment.

The digital transformation task is built on three pillars: digital ministry, digital agriculture economy and digital rural areas, and digital farmers.

Long Coc tea hill in Phu Tho (Photo: VNA)

Accordingly, the department selected multi-platform software to serve digital transformation of farming units in the province. It also developed and operated software on digital transformation in agriculture on the website: http://phutho.idfood.net/ and the "Agritech - Digital Agricultural Value Chain" app on mobile devices. All features are illustrated with icons and images, and are user-friendly. The software and app fully integrated subsystems for crop cultivation, forestry, animal husbandry, aquaculture, and processing of agro-forestry products.

As many as 50 production facilities and products under the One Commune One Product (OCOP) programme have been chosen for digital transformation.

Director of the department Nguyen Minh Tuan said last year, the sector worked with relevant units to help farmers and cooperatives sell products on various e-commerce platforms.

Seminars and workshops on digital transformation in agriculture were held both in-person and online. Training courses were also opened for agriculture officers, local agriculture promotion workers, and farmers to improve their knowledge and skills of applying information and digital technologies.

However, many local agricultural products are still produced in their raw form without undergoing deep processing. The production scale is often small and fragmented, with the absence of product labels and traceability stamps. Funding for sci-tech research and development in agriculture remains limited while skilled workforce is insufficient.

To develop a digital agriculture, the sector will tackle difficulties and obstacles, offer all possible support to farmers to adapt to digital transformation via equipping them with basic skills and practices and connecting them with tech-savvy businesses.

Resources will be integrated into value chains from production and processing, aiming for all OCOP products to participate in digital transformation and have traceability stamps before being introduced to the market./.