Page 29 - Agricultural innovation

Figure 9. Equipments for sowing, spraying and pest control at My Dong 2 Cooperative
Source: Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper

With many modern farming methods implemented synchronously, the cooperative not only helps
farmers to reduce production costs and reduce labor, but also improves productivity, with a rice yield
of over 5,3 tons/ha or 1 ton higher than conventional farming methods.

3.7.3. Opportunities and challenges
The trend of applying high technology in agricultural production has always been of interest to all levels
of government as well as production organizations in agriculture, especially with collective economic
models such as cooperatives. Therefore, smart agricultural models at My Dong 2Cooperative in Dong

Thap province are a great opportunity for the development of Vietnam’s modern agriculture, especially
when technological equipment is interested by many businesses to produce with costs suitable to the
economic conditions of Vietnam.
This is also a good opportunity for this model to participate in carbon reduction programs in
agricultural production, such as the 1 million hectares of high quality rice export program in the
Mekong Delta provinces, or the SRP rice farming model applying the Alternate Wetting and Drying
Irrigation (AWD) method to reduce carbon emissions, etc.
However, this model requires certain conditions. First of all, the scale must be large enough to
be able to promote the superiority of smart technologies. Large investment is also a big challenge for
collective economic organizations such as cooperatives with limited financial capacity. It is known that
the current cooperative’s smart farming system is mobilized from many different capital sources from
the provincial budget, agricultural restructuring programs, VnSAT project, etc. with a value of about
32 billion VND.

3.7.4. Conclusions
The smart agricultural application model at My Dong 2 Cooperative in Dong Thap province is

considered the most modern rice production model in the Mekong Delta region with outstanding
features such as: controlling production by smartphone to monitor pests, spraying, fertilizing with
Drones, remote control of irrigation pumps, mechanization of all stages of rice harvesting in the field.
It has created fields without footprints. Farmers now work very well in the fields, their clothes are not
as dirty as before. Cooperative has been taking care for cropping varieties, sowing time and selling
of rice. However, the expansion of the model requires the State’s investment in field planning, the
irrigation system as well as the development of the collective economy and the support of the people.

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