HCM CITY — The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is preparing an ambitious plan that aims to further mechanise agricultural production in order to increase productivity and minimise post-harvest losses and costs.

The plan is also expected to enhance the added value and quality of domestic agricultural products as well as their competitiveness at home and abroad.

Under the plan due to be submitted to the Government later this month, the ministry has set targets of exclusively using machinery for producing seeds and tilling 70 to 75 per cent of the land.

The ministry will widely disseminate the use of machines in all other farming processes, including rice sowing, transplanting, plucking, husking and watering.

The ministry is also building up projects that aim to mechanise all harvesting and farming processes of main crops such as rice, sugarcane, maize and coffee.

To realise these goals, Prof Pham Van Lang, general secretary of the Viet Nam Society of Agricultural Engineering, said the ministry needs to have measures to encourage farmers to use agricultural machinery.

Lang stressed the need for manufacturers to set up a close relation between the market and their products to ensure that their products meet market demands.

The ministry should also encourage economic sectors involved in the manufacturing of agricultural machinery to further invest in upgrading their equipment to improve their manufacturing capacity, he said.

Lang suggested that the domestic mechanical engineering industry give priority to manufacturing small and medium-sized agricultural machines over the next 10 years.

Since most farm fields in the country have not yet been enlarged, small-sized agricultural machinery can be utilised more easily and effectively, he said.

Phan Thanh Tinh, director of the Viet Nam Institute of Agriculture Engineering and Post-harvest Technology (IAEPT), said scientists should have a comprehensive understanding of the agricultural sector’s practical demands.

They should reorganise their research and manufacturing of agricultural engineering equipment in ways that would supply the market with proper machines to ensure efficiency, Tinh said.

In the coming time, Tinh said that the IAEPT will focus on mechanisation in areas such as cultivation, harvesting, processing and hybrid production.

Immediately, the institute would modernise the technology used for processing rice, vegetables, fruits, vegetable oil and livestock products, in order to improve the quality and competitiveness of domestic agricultural products, he said.

Also, in an attempt to strongly mechanise agricultural production, the Prime Minister has approved a scheme that was designated to develop the domestic mechanical engineering industry from now through 2010, and then forward to 2020.

The scheme will give investment priorities to manufacturing modern machinery for agricultural production activities.

Farming by hand

Although mechanisation has strongly increased in recent years, it is only meeting 15 per cent of the country’s demand because most farmers still cultivate and harvest by using their hands.

According to the IAEPT, the Mekong River Delta, the country’s biggest rice basket, is leading the country in the use of machinery for agricultural production. As a result, its farming efficiency is much higher than in other regions.

The delta in 2005 contributed 50 per cent of the country’s output of 36.9 million tonnes of rice, and 90 per cent of the 5.2 million tonnes of rice exports.

As compared to the rest of the country, delta farmers began using machinery much earlier, even as far back as 1975.

The delta now has 2,800 harvesters, 60,000 tractors and 800 combines in addition to thousands of other specialised machines, according the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute.

At present, nearly 90-95 per cent of the delta’s rice plucking and husking is now being done by machinery. Moreover, 69 per cent of tilling and 60 per cent of watering is mechanised. But rice drying and harvesting are still highly labour intensive.

Rice harvesting is considered to be one of the most important processes, but only 8.2 per cent of the work is done by machines.

The rates of farming work done by machinery in central and northern provinces are much lower than in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta.

Experts attributed the slow mechanisation of agricultural production to many reasons, one of which is that most farming plots remain too small to use machines.

Over the last few years, the Government has developed many programmes to enlarge farming areas but they still remain small.

Farmers in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta own an average of 0.7 ha of cultivated land, far more than in other localities. However, even many of these plots remain too small to justify using modern machines like combines.

Another reason is that most farmers still have low incomes so they cannot afford advanced production equipment. In addition, farmers’ limited knowledge of advanced technology and equipment has also prevented them from using machinery.

The country now has 1,300 enterprises involved in the manufacture and trade of agricultural machines, and 1,218 others specialising in repair and maintenance. However, the number of domestically manufactured agricultural machines is substantially less than the market’s demand. Farmers are forced to use expensive imports.

"Local farmers lose thousands of dollars every year due to machinery shortages for harvesting rice," said Mai Thanh Phung, an expert with the National Agricultural Extension Centre.

In particular, harvesting by hand on a field that yields eight tonnes of rice often results in a loss of about 8 per cent, while post harvest losses with machines represent only 3 per cent, Phung said. — VNS