Southern Dong Nai Province near HCM City is increasingly using advanced technologies in agriculture and high-yield crop and animal strains.
Pham Minh Dao, director of its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said all rice, corn, sugarcane, and bean farmers and 90 per cent of cassava growers use newly developed strains of high quality and yield.
Growing vegetables and other crops in green houses and using irrigation, fertilisers, and pesticides in a scientific manner have seen the agriculture sector add value, he said.
Most farmers have replaced human labour with machines, with machines doing nearly 100 per cent of the ploughing.
The province has invested in irrigation canals to provide water for cultivation, enabling many areas to grow crops all year round.
More than 200,000 farming families work on 368,000ha of land, with more than 1 per cent of them earning VNÐ100 million (US$5,100) per ha per year, according to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Agricultural output increased from VND5.6 trillion ($295 million) in 2005 to VND7.5 trillion last year, and is expected to rise to VND8 trillion ($410,000) this year.
However, large areas are not earmarked for growing a particular crop while co-ordination between the Government, businesses, farmers, and scientists is not very good, causing severe volatility in prices.
Despite being located in the southern key economic zone, the province has just 73 agricultural co-operatives and four high-productivity unions.
To resolve these shortcomings, authorities will focus on modernising agriculture and developing agricultural processing and rural services and co-operatives.
Dao said the province will focus on developing co-operatives because only creating large tracts for cultivation will facilitate the use of machinery, drive down costs, and increase profits.
Last September the province began construction of the 2,187-ha Agropark agro-industrial complex in Xuan Loc District.
The complex, expected to be finished in five years, will focus on crops, livestock, food processing, and other areas.
Source: VNS