This is one of the series of the project activities "Raising awareness and capacity among officials and members of the Farmers’ Union on innovative start-ups, digital transformation, and the active participation in OCOP local programs” sponsored by Global Environment Fund, Global Environment Small Grants Programme and United Nations Development Program.
Attending the Conference, on the side of VNFU were Ms. Cao Thu Xuan Van, Vice Chairwoman of the VNFU, Mr. Nguyen Hong Hai - Chief Office of VNFU, representatives of FUs of 28 provinces and cities in the north and north central coast.
On the side of Lao Cai province, there were Mr. Hoang Quoc Khanh, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Standing Vice Chairman of Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee; leaders of departments and branches of the province; officers, members and typical cooperatives in the province.
Speaking at the opening of the Dialogue Conference, Ms. Cao Thu Xuan Van, Vice Chairwoman of the VNFU affirmed: Our Party and State have been paying special attention to digital transformation in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a necessary and objective requirements; is a task of particularly important strategic significance, both urgent and long-term for both the political system and the entire society, closely linked to the process of international integration.
Accordingly, Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW of the Politburo on a number of guidelines and policies to actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution emphasizes "promoting digital transformation in Party, State, Fatherland Front, socio-political organizations offices", "Building and synchronously developing national data infrastructure. Forming a system of national, regional and local data centers with synchronous and unified connection. Forming reliable and stable data systems of the State and enterprises. Invest in equipment systems for collecting, storing, processing and protecting public data.
From the experience of national digital transformation of countries around the world and the practice of digital transformation in Vietnam, the 13th Party Congress has determined the content of national digital transformation in the years of implementation on 3 basic aspects: are digital economy, digital society and digital government.
Digital transformation in agriculture, farmers, and rural areas plays a particularly important role in restructuring the agricultural sector, developing concentrated, large-scale commodity agriculture towards modernity, high added value, and sustainability, affirming its role as a "support pillar" of the economy, becoming a "measure of the country's level of sustainability."
Digital transformation is an important solution to help farmers and businesses produce quality agricultural products, at the lowest cost, but with the highest profits. This goal is also being promoted by industries, localities, businesses and people, with the expectation of creating a breakthrough in productivity, quality and competitiveness of agricultural products.
Although a number of outstanding achievements have been achieved, the process of digital transformation of agriculture and rural areas in Vietnam still has many difficulties and challenges such as: low level of mechanization, inadequate supporting technologies to Agricultural development services (mechanics, deep processing, agricultural product testing lines...); small-cultivated areas.
Forecasting the output of agricultural products is still mainly based on experience; limited investment in digital transformation from agricultural enter prices; unclear or hardly any creative startups in the digital transformation period; e-commerce formed but insufficient; lack of attention in building and protecting agricultural product brands; Limited quality human resources of highly specialized in digital agriculture; limited awareness and skills in using digital technology of farmers…
From that fact, it is required that the VNFU at all levels, each VNFU staffs and member need to renew their mindset and awareness about digital transformation; focus on creating and advising the party committee and government to renew mechanisms and policies of the digital transformation process; have solutions and actions to clearly show their position and role in the process of national digital transformation in the fields of agriculture, farmers and rural areas," emphasized Ms. Cao Thu Xuan Van.
At the Dialogue Conference, the delegates discussed and proposed a number of propaganda contents and solutions, such as: Raising awareness of farmers and society about digital transformation; improve knowledge about digital transformation and digital economic development in agriculture for farmers; Build and transfer models to support farmers in digital transformation; improve the capacity of FU staffs in supporting the digital transformation and strengthen the coordination to exploit digital transformation resources...
Also at the conference; staffs, members and some cooperatives in Lao Cai province raised questions related to the fields of agriculture, farmers and rural areas, especially digital transformation. Answering the questions posed at the dialogue, leaders of departments and branches of Lao Cai province focused on solving difficulties and problems faced by staffs, members and cooperatives of the province. In particular, Lao Cai province will effectively implement the traceability and grant of planting area codes for crops to ensure the export process of agricultural products, direct agencies and focal units to manage software to guide the provision of software for enterprises and cooperatives in the process of digital transformation; continue to invest in infrastructure, issue a plan to develop digital infrastructure; striving to 2025, Lao Cai province will deploy investment in telecommunications infrastructure to disadvantaged areas.
Speaking at the closing of the Conference, Mr. Hoang Quoc Khanh - Standing Vice Chairman of Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee, said: "The issues raised by the representatives of organizations and individuals at the Conference are very practical and close to what Lao Cai province and localities are very concerned about."
Agricultural digital transformation is the process of applying digital technologies from production to processing, distribution and consumption of agricultural products. The basic difference between digital agriculture and traditional agriculture is the application of technical technologies to the entire industry's activities, changing the way of management, production and consumption of product from traditional way to a modern and smart system.
According to Mr. Khanh, for the overall and comprehensive transformation, it is necessary to focus on 3 main factors of digital agriculture, digital farmers and smart countryside. It is essential to strengthen the application of digital technologies that have been widely disseminated today, such as Internet, big data and cloud computing, into processes from production, processing, distribution, and connection, forming the digital ecosystem of the agricultural industry.
Digital transformation of agriculture with the goal of bringing benefits to farmers. To achieve those benefits, every farmer needs to become a digital farmer. Therefore, organizing training and improving digital skills for farmers is an urgent requirement, in particular, focusing on strengthening digital skills training for young farmers who easily receives and learns new technologies and knowledge, thereby spreading it in the community.
Smart countryside has become a big move since the traditional agriculture to the present and future agro-ecosystems. In order to promote agricultural digital transformation in rural areas, the construction of information infrastructure to ensure connection to fixed and mobile broadband Internet in rural areas should be accelerated and closely combined with the agricultural development planning.
Mr. Hoang Quoc Khanh, Member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, Standing Vice Chairman of the Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee, suggested that the VNFU continues to implement the project " Raising awareness and capacity among officials and members of the Farmers’ Union on innovative start-ups, digital transformation, and the active participation in OCOP local programs, period 2020-2025". Also, Support resources for PFUs, including Lao Cai province to implement the contents and tasks of the Scheme together with provincial programs in order to soon complete the goal of promoting digital transformation in the field of agriculture, farmers, rural areas.