Ms. Ho Thi Phuong, 60 years old, took us to visit the family vegetable garden of Yen Vien Agricultural Service Cooperative (Yen Vien Cooperative), Gia Lam District, Hanoi, and told us that now the age of science is a result of learning technology , farmers like her also need to keep up with new advanced agricultural trends to be ready to apply them in the field.

“The more we learn from farmers, the more knowledge we have to apply in farming. Thanks to this, our people in Yen Vien Cooperative have produced high-quality green vegetable products, for example, the semi-automatic irrigation system you see, we researched and learned from each other to use it on a large scale like today,” Ms. Phuong said.

When operating the automatic irrigation system, Ms. Phuong said, in the past, the vegetable farmers in Yen Vien had to irrigate manually, this stage was very cumbersome and required a lot of labor, so the cooperative members had to mobilize each other to invest in a semi-automatic economic irrigation system, to free up workers.

Yen Vien cooperative members evaluated that applying a semi-automatic water-saving irrigation system can help increase crop productivity by 25% and greatly reduce labor. In particular, the amount of water is saved by 40-45% compared to the traditional irrigation method.

With an investment of 2-3 million/sao for a semi-automatic irrigation system, Ms. Ho Thi Phuong confirmed that thanks to the vegetable sales of about 5 million/sao/month, it is easy to regain capital. Thanks to being freed from the labor of watering vegetables, Ms. Phuong boldly expanded the acreage from 2 to 4 sao.

It is known that at present, all 10.5 ha of Yen Vien Cooperative’s vegetable plantations adopt semi-automatic irrigation system, the annual turnover of more than 800 cooperative members averages VND 1 billion/ha.

Mr. Ngo Duy Hung, director of Yen Vien Cooperative, said that adopting a semi-automatic irrigation system helps the cooperative’s members save a lot of labor and water volume. In addition, plants grow and develop evenly thanks to an adequate and balanced water supply. Thanks to this, Yen Vien Cooperative’s green vegetable products have been approved by the city. Hanoi received 4-star OCOP certification in 2021.

“In the past, manual watering took up to an entire acre, one person could only water 2-4 posts, but now a semi-automated watering system is applied, with just one operation, turning the circuit breaker, the watering system works alone, in this time, people can take advantage of many other jobs in this field,” said Mr. Ngo Duy Hung.

The head of the Gia Lam plantation and crop protection station, Nguyen Trung Hieu, said that the introduction of advanced and economical irrigation techniques into vegetable production not only helps to reduce the amount of water for irrigation, reduce labor and prevent plants from growing Weeds, pests and diseases, but also helps to gradually change farmers’ agricultural practices, thereby improving the productivity, quality and efficiency of agriculture in an area, and especially increasing the competitiveness of products in the market.

Implementation of the policy of the City People’s Committee. Hanoi and Gia Lam District People’s Committee, the entire vegetable growing area of ​​Gia Lam District will be converted to high-tech, VietGAP and organic farming by 2025. In order to achieve the above goal, Gia Lam Plantation and Plant Protection Station (Hanoi Sub-Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection) will conduct training and transfer techniques on safe, organic and pesticide use for farmers in the coming period.