Digital transformation creates breakthrough for Hanoi farming

The application of digital transformation to the farming value chain will change rural households’ mindset, and become a game-changer to raise the value of farm produce and farmers’ income.

A farming of Chuc Son Clean Vegetable and Fruit Cooperative. Photo: Chuc Son Clean Vegetable and Fruit Cooperative

As one of the pioneers in applying the digital transformation, Chuc Son Clean Vegetable and Fruit Cooperative, Hanoi’s Chuong My District, has increased the output and value of vegetables.

 Established in 2016, over the years, the cooperative has initially built up a 17.8-ha VietGAP certified vegetable production area and another 5ha with GlobalGAP certification. Hoang Van Tham, Director of the cooperative, said its revenue has increased and members' income has improved as it has initially built production and consumption linkages with schools, hospitals, and supermarkets.

However, vegetable output and quality are largely dependent on the weather which affects the cooperative’s ability to become a stable supply source. In favorable weather, the output is too abundant and the farmers and cooperatives have to sell out vegetables at low prices.

To solve this, the cooperative shook hands with local scientists and digital solution providers to change their approach to consumers.

Since December 2016, with the advice of the Vietnam Digital Economy Cooperatives Union (VDECU), the cooperative implemented the application of a weather monitoring system and eGap technology cluster to help households manage and supervise production processes on time when the weather fluctuates. 

The cooperative supported 50% of the value of farmers’ smartphones so that all of them could apply the systems. Members were trained on how to access daily and weekly weather forecast pages from Imetos station, follow a protocol to take photos of their entire production process, and send them to the cooperative's data update system.

In 2021, the VDECU continued to support Chuc Son in completing the digital transformation in production simultaneously with sales, in two e-commerce platforms, namely, Kinhpeecvn and Cadosavn.

Each type of vegetable product of the Cooperative is produced under a standard process for digitalization. Currently, the cooperative has digitalized the production of 15 products (vegetables, spices, tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe) and trained 26 households in updating data to the system.

Since 2017, the cooperative has expanded with two more facilities in Thuy Huong and Moc Chau communes. Its daily sales volume has increased to 2-5 tons of vegetables and 200 kilograms of fruits at prices  1.2-1.5 times higher.  

The entire traceability system is digitized and linked to the eGap system, ensuring transparent supervision for each household and vegetable product code of Chuc Son.

According to Tham, the success of digital transformation has been thanks to the change in the perception of both farmers and consumers. It also requires the drastic involvement of departments and levels, especially state management agencies and the media.

To create favorable conditions for the digital transformation, Chuc Son Cooperative wanted the agricultural industry to coordinate with related units to soon build and deploy a strong, specialized trading platform that is accessible in the most convenient way so that cooperatives and farm owners can bring their goods to consumers. 

Tham added currently, there are too many single exchanges, which are not convenient for trading. In addition, it is necessary to have a digital agricultural extension policy, training support, coaching, minimum technological equipment to build application models as demonstrations for local consumers to better understand the benefits of technology, he said.

The 2022 goal

Hanoi has 160 high-tech agricultural production models (105 models in the field of crop production, 39  in livestock production, 15 in fisheries, and one combining cultivation and animal husbandry). The value of high-tech agricultural products accounted for about 35% of the total value of agricultural production in the city.

In 2022, the agricultural industry will continue to face many challenges in the context of the persisting pandemic that will keep affecting production, domestic consumption as well as exports.

The city is expected to go on with improving the business environment, strengthening preferential policies for businesses in terms of credit, business premises, trade promotion, re-planning of industrial parks for the development of a modern and sustainable agricultural industry.

Last year, the city's agricultural, forestry, and fishery production surged by 3.46% over 2020. Food output reached 1.05 million tons, up 0.9% against the previous year. Livestock production grew strongly with the output of trên meat of all kinds being 405,417 tons, up 7% year on year. Many business models using high-quality varieties of plant and livestock have been deployed.