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| First runner of the contest, farmer Bùi Văn Xuân (centre) from Hia Binh Province, receives an award on Sunday. — VNS Photo |
HA NOI (Biz Hub) — An award ceremony was held in Ha Noi on Sunday for a contest entitled "Farmers with information and technology".
The contest honored those farmers with basic electronic skills, including using the Internet, sending and receiving electronic mail, seeking to sell in the market, and using information and technology in agricultural production and the breeding industry.
According to the organizing committee, the contest provided a first prize of VND30 million, two second prizes of VND20 million each, three third prizes worth VND10 million each, and 57 consolation prizes of VND3 million.
Speaking at the ceremony, Lai Xuan Mon, Chairman of the Vietnam Farmers Association (VFA), said the VFA always identified IT as a critical tool that aimed to help farmers improve their production to meet the requirements of global integration. Amid this global trend, farm produces in Viet Nam have to fiercely compete. Integration brings with it both opportunities and challenges. The biggest challenge is in the field of agriculture, in planting crops and in raising livestock. If farmers do not gain access to information and technology, as well as advanced methods of production to produce high quality agricultural products, their products may not be competitive in domestic and international markets.
The contest is expected to help farmers, who account for 70 per cent of the nation's population, have an opportunity to learn how to use information and technology to their advantage in production, in order to increase productivity and product quality.
Through the contest, the organizing committee seeks to send a message to 15 million farming families across the country that Vietnam's agricultural products are facing fierce competition worldwide due to the country joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
In many countries, the use of IT in agriculture has taken great strength to liberalise and improve labour productivity for farmers, while developing agriculture into highly-valued goods. Agriculture with ICT applications, also known as "smart agriculture", is becoming a new trend, changing ways of organising production and significantly improving productivity, as well as the quality of agriculture in many parts of the world, he said. — VNS