Ho Chi Minh City aims for the role of a focal point for smart agriculture

On April 17, at the "Smart Agriculture" conference, experts, managers and businesses discussed agricultural development orientations in the new context, with a focus on the application of science and technology and digital transformation.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Bui Minh Thanh - Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee emphasized that the city is not only an economic center but also a focal point for science - technology and innovation, making many contributions in research, application and transfer of agricultural technology. These achievements have spread to regions such as the Mekong Delta, Southeast and Central Highlands, contributing to increasing added value for the industry.

In the context of climate change and global competition, Ho Chi Minh City leaders believe that developing smart agriculture is an inevitable trend to improve productivity, quality and competitiveness. The city is aiming to build a research - technology transfer center, promote regional linkages, improve policies to attract businesses and form a multilateral cooperation ecosystem.

Continuing the direction from management, experts emphasize that technology plays a key role in realizing the goal of developing smart agriculture.

From a professional perspective, Mr. Tran Van Tung - Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Science and Technology Information (VASTI), said that high technology has become a vital requirement of agriculture. However, to be effective, technology needs to be widely disseminated to businesses and farmers, and at the same time aim to meet international standards.

The application of technology should not only stop at production but also be linked to a comprehensive restructuring of the agricultural sector, economic expert Nguyen Hoang Dung said that the agricultural sector is strongly shifting to industrialization and digitization but still faces many challenges such as labor shortages, unoptimized productivity and low brand value. He emphasized the role of AI and robots in production automation, and proposed switching to "intelligence economy", building the "Five Homes+" ecosystem and towards green, circular agriculture, achieving Net Zero goals.

However, for these orientations to become reality, the story of specific deployment and digital transformation in each production sector still poses many challenges.

Mr. Lam Nguyen Hai Long - Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Informatics Association said that digital transformation is a comprehensive and complex process. Reality shows that the application of technology in melon cultivation brings clear efficiency, but for fields such as mushrooms or aquaculture, data standardization is still a major challenge.

Developing smart agriculture is an urgent requirement, in which science - technology, innovation and multilateral linkage will be key to enhancing value and sustainable development of Vietnam's agricultural sector.

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