Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times) newspaper spoke to Pham Van Lang, general secretary of the Viet Nam Agricultural Mechanics Association, about farming advancements.

What’s the current out look on agricultural mechanisation?

Agricultural mechanisation has seen some remarkable achievements contributing to the increase of productivity and quality with 3,000 harvesters and more than 500 threshers in use across the country.

In the past, most people invested their own money in new technology and agricultural equipment because of a lack of a co-ordinated effort among agencies from central to local levels to assist in developing technology and equipment.

Compared to the rest of the world, the process of mechanisation of agriculture in Viet Nam is still slow, especially in the northern delta where most farmers still have never used harvesters.

With mechanisation slow in coming, farmers are doing it for themselves. Could it be that farmers in the field know better than researchers and scientists?

It’s not right to say that, because farmers come up with their own technical innovations, they are better than agricultural scientists. Most farm inventions are based on available machines produced by specialists. Farmers just improve on it so that it can be more suited to local conditions. There haven’t been any farmers who have invented totally new equipment.

What are the main reasons for the slow process of mechanisation in agriculture?

The small area under cultivation by each farmer makes it difficult to make cost-effective use of machines. Mechanisation in the Mekong Delta is faster than in the Red River Delta because the cultivation area per person is larger.

Due to small areas under cultivation, farmers do the work by hand instead of using equipment. The costs of acquiring or using machines is greater than the benefit they can get.

On the other hand, agricultural customs remain backward.

The traditional way of sowing rice hasn’t kept pace with the times. Each household also grows rice differently so it is impossible to use harvesters in every field without damaging some.

How can we speed up the process?

Many regions are carrying out the policy called "gathering fields" with the aim of creating large combined areas large enough for efficient machine operation. This requires a change in customs and behavior by local farmers.

Some machines can also be adapted to smaller cultivation areas.

The State should issue practical policies to advance agriculture mechanisation. For instance, farmers could be given loans at preferential interest rates to acquire agricultural equipment.

It is also necessary to have reasonable taxes for agricultural machines. Enterprises should be encouraged by tax policy to enlarge their scale of production.

With reasonable policies, small- and medium-sized enterprises would invest more in agricultural machines. The establishment of a collective of agricultural machine operators would be a good way to gather together and focus resources.

Source: VietnamNews.