Quang Ninh farms turn to tech to grow agriculture sector

Quang Ninh (VNA) – The northern province of Quang Ninh is taking steps to boost high-tech agriculture to cut production costs, increase volumes, and cultivate high-quality farm produce.

To realise this goal, farmers are focusing on speeding up the digital transformation, considering it a strategic solution to enhancing the production, quality and competitiveness of agricultural products in domestic and international markets.

Dam Ha trade and construction company in Dam Ha district has invested more than 15 billion VND (647,250 USD) to building hydroponic greenhouse vegetable and melon farms, betting on high-tech hydro-growing operations to promote clean agriculture, cut workloads, and standardise quality.

Director Nguyen Huu Nhuong said that thanks the newly installed hydroponic systems, the company has enjoyed a production bump of nearly 100 tonnes of melon per year with a revenue of over 1 billion VND (43,150 USD).

Digital transformation is taking a firm foothold in aquafarming in Quang Ninh. The Viet-Uc Corporation (Vietnam-Australia) hi-tech complex for fry production in Tan Lap commune, Dam Ha district, covers nearly 170 hectares. Their shrimp farming automation system tracks each crustacean by code throughout the growing process. This allows the company to validate each shrimp from origin, through growth and processing, right to distribution. The high-tech farm thus confirms shrimp quality and tracks production in every step of the way.

Meanwhile, BIM Foods JSC has developed a 128-hectare high-tech shrimp farm project in Dai Binh commune so as to produce more than 250 million shrimp every year. At the same time, Bac Viet Fisheries Cooperative has also expanded its production scale to 7 million tonnes of fish and oyster each year to market.

Chairman of the People's Committee of Dam Ha district Tran Viet Dung confirmed that the strategic target of the locality is to continue to attract investment and speed up the transformation to high-tech agricultural. This means digitising many of the former manual processes in the agriculture sector, along with strengthening the application of new technologies, making Dam Ha a major hub of high-tech agriculture production.

At the same time, Quang Ninh promotes local agricultural products on e-commerce platforms, facilitating distribution and helping increase farmers' income. Currently, custard apple, litchi, dragonfruit, pomelo, rice and oyster and Sipunculus nudus food products from Quang Ninh are sold through many e-commerce channels.

Although Quang Ninh is not a pioneer in digital transformation, the province aims to catch up, and ensure the sustainability of the digital transformation, prioritising the building of data systems to manage and facilitate the issuance of farm product codes.

The province's agricultural ecosystem is to encourage people and businesses to engage in digital transformation process, while developing high-tech platforms to provide information on the environment, weather, and soil quality to farmers.

Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Minh Son said that the province aims to promote this digital transformation in a comprehensive manner in line with digital-based management.

Quang Ninh has already installed a software system capable of tracing agro-forestry-fisheries product origin at https://qn.check.net.vn/ . The system provides accounts for 142 local production facilities, while connecting to a similar system at Hanoi's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, he said.

Quang Ninh agriculture sector websites provide information on 456 products as a part of the One Commune-One Product (OCOP) project. As many as 13 localities track product to supermarkets and OCOP shops, while coordinating information to 418 enterprises, cooperatives and business households that trade on e-commerce platforms, said Dung.

Thanks to the huge push to boost the great digital transformation, Quang Ninh is moving closer to its target of developing a modern agricultural sector, adding value, quality and competitiveness to farm produce and ensuring sustainable income for farmers.

To date, Quang Ninh is home to 1,065 cultivation hectares of farms that meet VietGAP standards, and 28 breeding facilities that meet VietGAP standards, along with nine fisheries facilities that have received farm product codes to export goods to the Chinese market./.

VNA