Page 53 - Agricultural innovation

With a salinity monitoring system, farmers can actively take water into the orchard when the
salinity is low and store water in the garden for times when the river system is highly saline. The pest
warning system helps farmers to take timely pest control measures to ensure the quality of fruit. With
just a smartphone, cooperative members can access complete information about the salinity of water
before making a decision to use the water in the canal system around the garden for irrigation or to
pump water into the dike-surrounding garden. Similarly, they can monitor the situation of pests and
diseases in the garden to take effective control measures.
In addition to building a typical model for cooperative members to strive and benefit from digital
technology equipment, the cooperative has trained in waste sorting, in which organic waste is
composted in the garden to create organic fertilizer and fertilizing crops and improving soil. Currently,
the Board of Directors of the cooperative also encourages households to strive for multi-crop and
multi-service agricultural production, and has mobilized members to organize many supply services
such as providing essential goods, business eco-tourism in the garden, shuttle bus service for tourists
to experience at the orchards, etc.

Figure 15. Product sorting and packaging in Pomelo Cooperative of Giong Trom
Source: IPSARD, survey in 2022

With the fruit consumption service for members, the cooperative has built product showrooms,
sorting and packing warehouses to supply goods to supermarkets and specialized stores throughout
the country as well as promoting online sales, especially in special situations such as the time of the
COVID-19 epidemic.
The cooperative negotiated an appropriate shipping price and expanded the scope of e-commerce
platforms. During the epidemic, the members of the cooperative were trained in online sales and now
they know how to take pictures, record videos, and livestream to introduce products. This is really a new
consumption channel and solves the problem of devaluation season, increasing production value by 15–30%.

4.8.3. Opportunities and challenges

The model of production linkage at Giong Trom Pomelo Cooperative with technical support from
IFAD in response to saltwater intrusion can be typical in combining solutions for sustainable
agricultural development and circular diversification of farmers’ income and activities in the process
of “nature-based” production in the Mekong Delta. Therefore, the model can be widely applied to good

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