Mechanised Agriculture - Not a Distant Dream?

According to the statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam now has around 115,000 farms and more than 7,000 agro-forestry and fishery co-operatives. The annual growth of agriculture, forestry and fishery is maintained at 3.7 per cent while production value rises 5.2 per cent. Agricultural production value accounts for 20 per cent of the country’s GDP. These growths were rated slow relative to regional countries, according to specialists. The core reason is the substandard mechanisation of agriculture.

 

Also according to the ministry, the mechanisation of agriculture is out-dated and progressing too slowly. Machine power averages at 0.57 horsepower per hectare of cultivated land. Unregistered machines make up to 10 per cent. This fact pushes up agricultural production costs, lowers work productivity and unsettles product quality. The Mekong Delta Rice Institute pointed out that farmers in the Mekong Delta region lose a combined VND3,200 - 3,600 billion of post-harvest loss, accounting for nearly 12 per cent of the total output value.

 

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, rice harvesters are now processing only 1 per cent of rice acreage in the Mekong Delta while farmers are manually processing their rice. Mechanisation is now mainly applied to tilling, watering and initial care but it is only available in a few provinces. Many provinces cannot carry out mechanisation of agriculture because of problems with public policy.

According to statistics, Vietnam has around 1,300 producers of tractors, agricultural machines and equipment and 1,218 repairing and maintaining companies. However, they fail to meet the demand. For example, shrimp farmers need around 70,000 diesel engines with 6 - 10 horsepower a year but local companies are capable of turning down 25,000 engines. The remainder of 45,000 engines are made up by imports, mainly second-hand, from China, Japan and South Korea.

Dr. Le Van Banh, Director of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, said the core reason leading to the above situation is unfavourable rural infrastructure. Rice fields are split into small pieces. The Mekong Delta region is the largest hub of rice, aquatic products and fruits in Vietnam. However, this region does not have specialised agricultural training schools. Therefore, its weak labour force impossibly helps the Mekong Delta to exploit its advantages. More than 10 years ago, farmers had to take care of their fields and preserve unhusked rice. The current practices are almost the same. In the meantime, food trading companies which have warehouses, techniques and capital do not preserve unhusked rice but only husked rice destined for export. The current rice trading system is makes it impossible to control the rice preservation process and this increases the percentage of post-harvest loss while reducing rice quality.

 

At present, some 85 per cent of Mekong Delta farmers are using long-standing seeding practices. Harvesting is mainly manual. Farmers hardly use harvesters because of wet fields. Moreover, a motorised harvester costs VND150 - 200 million, an unaffordable amount for most households.

 

Another reason for the sluggish mechanisation of agriculture is farmers themselves. Besides, there are not many models of harvesters while the price rates are apparently unreasonable. Imported machines in a large quantity do not have clear origins.

 

To speed up the mechanisation of agriculture, the Government has approved the Vietnamese mechanical development strategy until 2010 and toward 2020. Accordingly, locally sourced agricultural machines and equipment will meet 45 - 50 per cent of the demand in the country. Besides, the Government also allows provinces and cities to buy agricultural machines by local budgets.

To advance the mechanisation of agriculture, apart from the above solutions, the State needs to introduce suitable policies to support farmers with buying agricultural machines. Since 2004, the Government has instructed financial institutions to provide soft loans for farmers in the Mekong Delta region to purchase machines and equipment for agricultural production. Relevant localities have executed this policy since 2006. Therefore, the number of combined harvesters has risen significantly. According to the Dong Thap Agricultural Encouragement and Technique Centre, Dong Thap province is striving to harvest 70 per cent of rice acreage by machine in 2010 and dry 60 per cent of rice in the summer-autumn and autumn-winter crops. To realise the two targets, in 2006 - 2007, Dong Thap lent nearly VND6 billion for farmers to purchase 70 combined harvesters, 36 mowers and 20 driers. The lending maturity was two years and the provincial budget supported 60 per cent of the interest rate. In the next two years of 2008 and 2009, the locality loaned VND60 billion to farmers to buy 350 combined harvesters, 200 mowers and 200 driers.

 

In several localities, the implementation of support policies and administrative procedures is annoying and complicated. The lending procedure is much more difficult and many farmers have missed their crops due to financial shortage. Worse, competent officials lack accountability and enthusiasm. Many localities do not apply policies concerning providing loans for farmers to buy agricultural machinery. Hence, financing has to go in line with the reform of administrative procedures. If solutions are synchronously and consistently carried out, the dream of mechanised agriculture will not be distant.