Farmers of Thang Loi Agricultural Service Cooperative (Dong Thap province) visit the pilot rice production project to implement the 1 million hectare high-quality, low-emission rice project. (PHOTO: HUU NGHIA)

The program aims to help farmers access new knowledge to apply in production to improve productivity, product quality, connect and expand consumption markets.

From 2021-2023, many households in localities such as Hanoi, Son La and Hung Yen will benefit from the Central agricultural extension project through a high-quality vegetable production model applying information technology to connect supply and demand in some northern provinces.

Dr. Do Van Ngoc, Deputy Director of the Center for Technology Transfer and Agricultural Extension (Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences), Project Manager, said: “After 3 years of implementation, the project has built 55 hectares of vegetable production according to a high-quality commercial chain with 18 models and 698 participating households. The project builds a supply-demand connection management information portal including a homepage and two applications running on iOS and Android platforms, helping customers grasp information and control from production to processing, packaging and signing product consumption contracts.

Statistics show that the average productivity of the models in the project has reached and exceeded the set target. In particular, the average productivity of melon production is 33.8 tons/ha, cabbage is 25.2 tons/ha, tomatoes are 59.3 tons/ha... The products have beautiful designs, good quality, and ensure food hygiene. The models have higher economic efficiency than production outside the model, specifically: The melon model is 30.6% higher, cabbage is 33.4% higher and tomatoes are 22.4% higher". Over the past month, since implementing the pilot model of intensive white-leg shrimp farming applying digital technology, reducing emissions associated with product consumption deployed by the National Agricultural Extension Center in Thanh Hoa province, it has brought certain results.

Deputy Director of Thanh Hoa Agricultural Extension Center Vu Van Ha said: “The model is deployed on an area of ​​2 hectares, applying an environmental monitoring system in the pond to grasp the temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH to help farmers manage water quality better and save costs. Thanks to the application of digital transformation, it helps optimize investment, reduce labor, and shrimp grow well.”

According to the National Agricultural Extension Center, digital transformation helps apply information technology to innovate forms, develop digital agricultural extension and build digital services. The goal is to gradually transform traditional agricultural extension activities into a digital environment, contributing to improving operational efficiency, enhancing connectivity and information sharing.

Director of the National Agricultural Extension Center Le Quoc Thanh said: “To implement digital transformation in the agricultural extension field, the center has started to develop a plan with three pillars: Digital communication; digital training and coaching; digital management of agricultural extension activities. Therefore, agricultural extension officers always determine their position and role as well as have adequate knowledge about digital transformation to guide and support farmers in agricultural production.”

Since 2021, the center has developed a digital transformation project in agricultural extension activities for the period 2021-2025 and the initial success is the implementation of the green agricultural extension application (green agricultural extension app) to create an effective, close and friendly propaganda channel for the people. Using this app, farmers with questions about farming techniques will receive specific advice from experts in the digital environment.

To date,National Agricultural Extension Centeris building a digital agricultural extension database, including software to help manage centralized data to serve the direction, operation, and progress monitoring of projects; organizing seminars in both direct and online formats that attract many participants; the Vietnam agricultural extension website and newsletter also open a digital transformation section and post a lot of technical guidance and agricultural activities for people to learn and apply in practice. The agricultural extension market page helps localities have more information channels to connect, promote, and consume products.

In addition, the center also enhances digital communication to facilitate people's access to necessary content anywhere, anytime on the internet; organizes training on the use of agricultural extension management software. This is a digital management tool built and developed with the goal of improving the efficiency of operations, monitoring, and synthesizing information from the central to the grassroots level. The software is designed to digitize the entire agricultural extension management cycle, from planning, task allocation, progress monitoring to synthesizing and reporting results; at the same time, it is also an important foundation for building a professional, comprehensive agricultural extension system, effectively serving the database of programs and projects.

Evaluation of the effectiveness ofdigital transformation in agricultural extension, Head of Information and Communication Department (National Agricultural Extension Center) Do Phan Tuan emphasized: “In recent times, digital transformation has helped staff access new information and knowledge and improve their consulting capacity, supporting farmers more effectively through digital documents and social networks. Moreover, it has contributed to many agricultural extension projects optimizing resources, reducing damage caused by climate change, increasing productivity, product quality, expanding consumption markets and connecting product consumption.

Up to now, the center has been implementing about 20 central agricultural extension projects applying high technology and digital transformation. However, the application of digital transformation in agriculture in general and agricultural extension activities in particular still faces many difficulties due to limited awareness of farmers; infrastructure for the development and application of new technologies is not yet synchronized...

Therefore, in the coming time, the National Agricultural Extension Center needs to build a centralized data system, ensuring connectivity, communication, sharing and synchronization from the central to local levels; build a digital agricultural extension system to effectively connect with the entire agricultural extension system.

Accordingly, from now until 2027, we will focus on building software and data solutions to serve the management, direction and piloting of digital agricultural extension services; building and operating criteria and tools to measure the effectiveness of agricultural extension activities through the digital environment; raising awareness and capacity to strive for 100% of officials at all levels to apply digital tools in agricultural extension activities...