A forum focusing on the development and connections of local start-ups and the agricultural sector in the fourth industrial revolution was held on Thursday in the southern province of Dong Thap’s Cao Lanh City.

Chairman of Dong Thap Province People’s Committee Nguyen Van Duong told the forum that the province had carried out many activities to support the development of local start-up companies.

There had been some projects that focus on exploration and exploitation of local resources and key products, however, the province was still short of high-tech start-up projects to further develop its agricultural sector, he said.

Initiating a start-up business was actually much harder than it looked so local authorities hoped that specialists and experts would share their ideas and experiences to help the province develop its community of high-tech start-ups, he added.

As the demand among provincial companies for high-tech agriculture applications has risen, some projects have been initiated to provide high-tech apps for the province’s agricultural sector, namely the environmentally-friendly water treatment process MET, the sensor system Farm Tech and the automotive mushroom farm.

According to Tony Wheeler, chairman of the Australian Redland Enterprise Renovation Council, applying advanced technologies in agricultural production has been essential to Australians because his country has a larger area but much smaller population size compared to Viet Nam.

Agriculture is the key industry of Australia and only science and technologies could reduce production costs, prevent the use of chemical substances and limit environmental impacts caused by the expansion of population and economy, he said.

Wheeler added that artificial intelligence and automation were key to boosting every industry as the two technologies were able to identify and process data to make accurate decisions for companies, thus cutting labour costs.

It’s positive that start-up companies in the southern province of Dong Thap have paid more attention to the use of biological technologies to drive their business and production toward an organic and clean agriculture industry, he said.

Producers should develop their smart farms that are automotive in all activities such as transportation, management and harvesting to create added value for their products, Wheeler said.

In order to do that, producers and agricultural firms must connect with each other, plus the local government should provide more incentives so that technologies can be applied to raise product quality, he said. – VNS