Lack of “locomotives” leading high-tech agricultural enterprises

	New fulcrums for economic growth
	Focusing on the "readiness" factor waiting for foreign investors in the high-tech field
	Binh Duong hopes to attract FDI investment in the high-tech field

Application of technology in livestock farming and milk production of TH Group. Photo: TH

Lack of land, lack of capital... hinder businesses

Sharing at the 2024 Agricultural Forum held recently, Mr. Dang Kim Son, Permanent Vice President of the Association of High-Tech Agricultural Enterprises, said that the main force in agricultural, forestry and fishery production and business in Vietnam is about 10 million small-scale farming households and several million agricultural business households, of which less than 3% of the total number of agricultural enterprises apply high technology.

Speaking about the benefits of applying high technology in agriculture, Mr. Ngo Minh Hai, Chairman of the Board of Directors of TH Group, said that the Group has systematically invested in the world's leading advanced scientific and technological achievements in Vietnam, applying them synchronously and throughout all closed production processes. TH true MILK fresh milk factory has been equipped with modern technology since its establishment, and has now reached a production capacity of 1 million liters/day - a record in the Vietnamese and world dairy industry...

According to the financial report of the second quarter of 2024 of Truong Hai Agricultural Joint Stock Company (Thaco Agri), the profit after tax in the first 6 months of 2024 reached nearly 4.9 billion VND, while in the same period last year it lost nearly 383 billion VND. This company currently has a large-scale agricultural investment strategy on an area of ​​over 84,000 hectares in 3 countries: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, thereby achieving the goal of increasing banana export output to 260,000 tons, harvesting rubber latex with an expected output of 14,400 tons, increasing the herd of cows by the end of the year to 151,500, and organizing pig farming with a total herd of 136,600.

At the recent conference on implementing the operation and management plan for the last 6 months of 2024, Mr. Tran Ba ​​Duong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thaco, said that Thaco Agri needs to meet the integration of circulation as the core of agricultural production. In crop or livestock production, it is necessary to synchronously deploy construction, machinery, industry, investment, human resources, apparatus, etc.

However, it can be seen that the two typical enterprises above are both large corporations, strong in finance, while the majority of agricultural enterprises in our country are still small and micro-sized, even mostly cooperatives, households, etc. Therefore, many difficulties are hindering the development of enterprises applying science and technology such as: lack of land fund to organize large-scale production; lack of capital for investment; lack of attachment and support from institutes, schools, research agencies; lack of information and technology supply sources; lack of qualified consultants... while the international market is placing increasingly high and strict demands on imported agricultural products.

Strengthening links with strong mechanisms

To promote the application of high technology in agriculture, Mr. Dang Kim Son said that there must be solutions for large corporations and enterprises that are applying high technology to expand their production scale, become the nucleus of spreading and supporting the application of science and technology for small and medium enterprises along with cooperatives and all farmers. From there, Mr. Son proposed the formation of high-tech agricultural zones, high-tech agricultural areas associated with specialized areas of key agricultural products.

Mr. Pham Hong Quat, Director of the Department of Market Development and Science and Technology Enterprises, Ministry of Science and Technology, also said that innovation and application of high technology in agriculture need the participation of corporations, especially the leading "locomotives" in agriculture to help share knowledge, for agricultural enterprises...

In addition, according to Mr. Ha Van Thang, Chairman of the Vietnam Agricultural Enterprise Council (VCAC), cooperation in investment and development of agriculture is the process of changing the isolated operating model into an integrated model, taking science, technology and innovation as the foundation, applying scientific and technological advances to all agricultural production and business activities. Currently, 63 provinces and cities across the country have state-owned science centers, organizations and enterprises. Many centers have invested heavily in modern equipment and technology, but most of them have not been able to utilize available resources due to the lack of legal basis to carry out cooperation and association activities with domestic and foreign organizations and individuals, causing a huge waste of resources.

Therefore, Mr. Ha Van Thang recommended that businesses should strengthen their cooperation and close and sustainable cooperation through pilot models, leading models, and highly effective models. However, at the same time, management agencies need to soon issue strong enough regulations to have a legal framework for new economic models, green economy and circular economy in a new direction. Because according to Mr. Thang, development cooperation and innovation models need to be allowed to be implemented in the form of testing and piloting according to an open mechanism, not being governed by old regulations on the principle of only doing what is not prohibited by law.