A booth at the OCOP Ha Noi Specialty Livestream Festival in June last year. The application of digital technology to the production and consumption of products will help Ha Noi's farmers increase added value of agricultural products. — Photo Nguyen Hoang

To build a smart agriculture sector, Ha Noi like other localities across the country has employed many solutions to help farmers access and apply digital technology in production and consumption activities, aiming to build a new generation of farmers who can master digital technology.

Nguyen The Hanh, director of Hai Anh Safe Vegetable JSC, said his company has built an electronic sales system including a website and social media page to promote product consumption.

“The information about the growing area, production process, product origin and labels are updated on each kind of vegetable. Currently, the company buys about 500-600 kilos of vegetables for farmers every day,” Hanh said.

Vice President of Ha Noi Farmer’s Union Duong Thi Hang said Ha Noi’s farmers are actively applying digital technology to production and setting up groups to sell products online. During the peak time of the pandemic, farmers in districts connected and sold thousands of tonnes of farm produce through websites. Many farmers have actively built their electronic sales channels and connected with businesses to develop an online brand identity (including website, email system, Facebook fanpage and landing page).

To date, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in coordination with the Ministry of Information and Communications have created digital booths for 2.5 million farming households on Vietnam Post’s e-commerce platform Postmart.vn.

Besides providing a digital platform and instructions on how to trade online, Vietnam Post also supports farmers in integrating solutions such as marketing, communication, packaging, transportation and payment. Currently, nearly 50,000 agricultural products have been sold on this platform, demonstrating the early effectiveness of digital transformation in the agriculture sector.

To meet the increasing requirements in the future, MARD will develop a framework programme for training on digital technology and digital transformation for agricultural enterprises and agricultural cooperatives.

"The implementation of digital transformation in the agricultural sector is built on three pillars including digital ministry, digital agricultural economy and digital countryside and farmers,” said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien.

Tien said in 2022, the ministry has chosen two sectors – farming and livestock production – to make a breakthrough in fostering digital transformation.

“The ministry will promote the formation of a data and digital platform to serve the management, direction and administration of local ministries and branches, develop e-commerce and digital services to support farmers to access digital technology from production to consumption,” Tien said.

In contribution to the digital transformation process in the agriculture sector, Nguyen Xuan Lam, a member of Vietnam Post’s Board of Directors, said this year, Vietnam Post and the Vietnam Farmers' Union will work closely with the authority to support 7.5 million farming households to introduce their products on Postmart.vn.

“To do this, we will organise training courses on e-commerce skills for participants on the platform,” Lam said, noting many localities have also actively developed plans for digital transformation in agricultural production and introduced solutions to support farmers to participate in this process.

Director of the Ha Noi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Chu Phu My said the department has coordinated with the Vietnam Digital Economy Cooperatives Union (VDECA) to build a digital transformation plan in the agriculture sector in the 2022-25 period and the annual action plan. It also requires entities in the sector to actively implement the digital programme from production to product consumption and distribution, collaborating with enterprises to digitalise, distribute and consume high-tech and high-quality agricultural products on the basis of transparent information about planting area codes and product origins by technology.

According to My, modern agriculture requires professionalism, cooperative thinking and the ability to access science and technology, but this is a limitation of farmers who are still attached to the traditional production. Therefore, Ha Noi will continue to accompany and support farmers in the digital transformation process. However, farmers also need to change their mindset and take the initiative to master digital technology, meeting the inevitable development trend of modern agriculture. — VNS