Cucumbers grown in a greenhouse in HCM City’s Cu Chi district. (Photo: VNA)HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Smart farming has played an important role indeveloping agriculture in the Southern Focal Economic Zone.
In the past few years, smart farming has been used successfully in manylocalities in the zone, attracting great attention from farmers and thebusiness community.
The HCM City-based Quang Trung Software Park has introduced a number of smartfarming models, including ones that use LED lamps and systems to growvegetables in containers with high output and quality.
According to figures from the HCM City Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment, agricultural land accounts for over 46 percent of the land in thezone compared to just 34 percent in HCM City.
Dr Tu Minh Thien, deputy chief of the HCM City Hi-tech Agricultural Park, saidecological agriculture and improvement in quality were both needed.
The zone should be developed into a national centre for hybridisation withlaboratories that use advanced technologies and create new innovativetechnologies for agricultural use. It should also build brand names forregional specialities.
HCM City had led the way in smart farming models for farmers and the businesscommunity.
Thien said its Department of Agriculture had focused on the development ofsustainable urban agriculture "using biotechnology and is a hub fordeveloping high–quality plant and animal varieties”.
This acted as an impetus for sustainable agricultural development in theSouthern Focal Economic Zone.
"Smart farming also can help turn HCM City into a centre for technology,including biotechnology," he said.
Statistics from the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce show that investment in thezone accounts for only 1 percent of total investment in agriculturaldevelopment in Vietnam and 3 percent of companies’ investments in business andproduction activities.
Ninety percent of investment in agricultural development is from small andmedium-sized enterprises.
Thien said relevant agencies had yet to issue policies to promote smart farmingand tech companies had not focused on agriculture./.
VNA
