Building and developing the agricultural mechanics industry, improving the quality of domestic machinery and mechanical equipment is one of the important solutions to promote the application of mechanization and automation in agricultural production and processing. This will improve the competitiveness of Vietnam's agricultural products on the world market.
This is the judgment of experts at the intelligent agricultural mechanics workshop for the Mekong Delta organized by Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee in collaboration with Ho Chi Minh National University, on September 27.
Dr. Tran Anh Son, Deputy Head of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City National University of Technology, said that climate change, sea level rise and saline intrusion have narrowed the production land area. agriculture, there is a risk of a radical change in the structure of agricultural production and the lives of people in the Mekong Delta.
Meanwhile, models of farming and agricultural production in the Mekong Delta are still limited and not commensurate with the potential of the region. Typically, the situation of small, spontaneous production, not under planning and preserving agricultural products is good. Therefore, the productivity and product quality are uneven, reducing the competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products on the world market.
Specifically, in rice cultivation, due to the high cost of imported machinery and equipment, most people accept to use used plows and old tractors, which consume a lot of fuel and operate unstable. Harvesting rice also faces difficulties due to rudimentary technology. The post-harvest losses of rice remained at 13-14% in quantity and over 12% in value. Meanwhile, with fruit production, backward processing technology also affects the quality of fruits and vegetables.
The processing lines are not synchronized, have automatic stitching but still exist many stages of manual manipulations such as soaking, peeling, sorting and packaging, and low traceability. Similar to the aquaculture industry, the Mekong Delta has a very large farming area, but the qualifications and production equipment are still limited in terms of farming, harvesting, processing and environmental treatment.
Associate Professor, Dr. Huynh Thanh Dat, Director of Ho Chi Minh National University, said that mechanization in agricultural production is a very important solution to improve productivity, but the mechanical industry. Support for agriculture in Vietnam is limited in quantity and quality. Currently, most of machinery and equipment for agricultural production are imported from abroad because the machinery manufacturing industry for agriculture in Vietnam is still inadequate, few leading enterprises, manpower is lacking and weak, low capacity, high prices, market organization is not commensurate with the size of the national agriculture.
Particularly in the Mekong Delta, promoting the mechanization and application of science and technology in agricultural production still faces many difficulties. The reason is that the value chain of agricultural products has not yet been formed, the chain of links is still not close with international distributors and markets. the production land is still fragmented, while the process of agglomeration and concentration of agricultural land takes place slowly, not synchronous about legal procedures. Along with that, the Southwest region for a long time remains the "low-lying" country of education, the application of science and technology to life.
The above difficulties, coupled with the preferential legal framework on technology investment in general, in high-tech oriented agriculture in particular are not complete, businesses are still afraid to invest in machinery and technology. Technology in agricultural production. In addition, the mechanism of coordination among localities, regional and sub-regional development links is still limited.
According to experts, most of Vietnam's agricultural growth so far has relied on expanding production or increasing the use of land and other natural resources, as well as using a lot of fertilizers and other chemicals. . This has an adverse impact on the environment, soil and water resources. Meanwhile, the Mekong Delta has almost no room to expand agricultural production area and improve productivity with current scientific and technological level.
Therefore, in order to meet the sustainable development of agricultural economy for the Mekong Delta, it is necessary to apply scientific and technical advances, especially mechanization in the production process, increasing the value of production. products, creating a variety of types and products, making the most of and converting maximum sources of by-products during the production process to enhance the product value chain.
Mr. Nguyen The Ha, Investment Director of Bui Van Ngo Mechanical Co., Ltd. said that to promote the application of mechanization and automation in agricultural production, processing agricultural products, it is necessary to have solutions to promote development. The development of domestic mechanical engineering by imported agricultural machines and equipment is very expensive.
Accordingly, the State needs to directly support the research and development of new equipment, machinery and technologies for agricultural production, and reduce administrative procedures in consideration of research support. At the same time, there is a mechanism to encourage schools and institutes to link with enterprises in researching, manufacturing and commercializing agricultural mechanical products, creating an ecosystem for the mechanical engineering industry to support agricultural development. and apply to the production practices of the people.
According to Mr. Nguyen The Ha, if production is fragmented with a scale of several thousand square meters, a few hectares of land, it is difficult to apply mechanization in planting and harvesting. Therefore, in order to promote the application of mechanics and technology in agriculture, it is necessary to change the land policy, large and synchronous production orientations. Another equally important factor is training and improving the quality of human resources because the labor force in rural areas is abundant but not yet trained to operate mechanized machinery and equipment.
Only when the mechanical engineering industry supports agriculture development, rational production planning and labor resources with sufficient qualifications and operational skills will promote the application of mechanization and automation in agricultural production. Since then, enterprises have improved the quality and competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products.