Da Lat city in Lam Dong province has become well-known for its modern agricultural techniques. Many of Vietnam’s wealthy farmers are situated in the Central Highlands city, thanks to their investment and application of scientific and technological advances in production.
According to Dr. Pham S, Vice Chairman of Lam Dong provincial People's Committee, many farms in Lam Dong have been equipped synchronously, meeting technical requirements, with modern facilities and surveillance cameras to supervise the plant caring and development process. The automated systems also analyse environmental data, thus giving warnings and processes for better growing crops and improving productivity. "Application of sensors connected to the Internet is the core technology. In Lam Dong, the technical infrastructure for IoT supply and enterprise administration has been developed initially. It is important for us to become one of the successful countries in smart Agriculture 4.0 in the coming years,” affirmed Dr. Pham S.
According to Lam Dong Agricultural Extension Centre, there are eight households in the province that have been granted funding to support the setup of intelligent automatic irrigation systems, not to mention dozens of businesses and farms that have invested and applied the model by themselves. The locality received 50 smart irrigation systems funded by a Japanese company and transferred to local businesses, cooperatives and farmers meeting the required conditions. Actual results show that the application of accurate watering technology helps farmers save 30-50% of water compared to the conventional farming method, thereby reducing energy consumption with corresponding rates in operating irrigation systems, freeing the labour cost in operating manual irrigation models and also reducing fertiliser costs. More importantly, with the intelligent irrigation control algorithm, the root of the plant is always kept in the most optimal condition, helping to increase productivity remarkably. "Science and technology has helped farmers in Da Lat and the surrounding areas to work more leisurely than other locales, while significantly reducing direct labour costs," Deputy Head of the Lam Dong Agricultural Extension Centre, Nguyen Minh Truong, confided.
Now, the management of gardens and farms can be encapsulated on farmers' mobile devices. According to Nguyen Duc Huy, Director of Viet Hydroponics Cooperative, the stage of watering and nutrition filling is no longer dependent on humans. The system calculates all accurately, with sufficient and correct volume. The application helps increase annual productivity by about 10%. The important thing now is to transfer and replicate the model in cooperative members to have equal product quality.