ABSTRACTS

IT network towards agriculture extension and markets in Vietnam.

Dr. Tran Lam Duong, Center for Informatics and Statistics, MARD, VietNam

Vietnam Agriculture Extension and Market Information System was established based on the research and application of information technology and communication in information collection, processing and dissemination to farmers, managers, researchers and target participants in rural areas, government agencies and science research institutions. An information system covering 100 specifically selected districts of 20 provinces was established and came in operation since 2006 under the coordination and technical supports of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) represented by the Statistics and Information Technology Centre. Its performance was highly appreciated by MARD as it helped provide information to farmers, managers, and scientific researchers in the context of the agricultural sector’s shifting to market mechanism where the producers took initiatives in both producing for markets and marketing their products.

The strategies of IT and controlled devices of SCADA in the management and operation aim to enhance the capacity of irrigation systems in Vietnam.

Prof. Vo Khac Tri, Water Irrigation  Sciences Academy,  MARD

The existing irrigation system has contributed very much for development of  agricultural and aquaculture products and processing industry in Vietnam. However the water resources are nearly none development while the food requirements are increased  by  population growth as a result of the increasing of irrigated agricultural area. Especially the regions were rarely water such as South middle area and high land in Vietnam. Besides water resources have to share among other economic fields and other countries if it is belongs to international river basin as Mekong River and Red River basin in the Northern Delta. For this reason, the application of information technologies and devices in the management and the operation in the irrigation systems can be considered as a necessary program aim to enhance and exploit effectively their capacities and to meet the requirement of water services in the present and future. The problem is addressed how to improve and modernize the water distribution devices, water saving and decrease the cost of the investment.

Web-GIS system for supervising and forecasting pestilent and insects on the rice fieldAgriculture technology transfer through IT

Dr. Nguyen Dang Vy, Sofware Center for Water irrigation

Pestilent and insect in rice is one of the main reasons impact on rice yield and total production of rice crop, and food security in Vietnam. Having timely information and forecasting changes about the pestilent and insect situation are urgent problems. They provide the administrators and the farmers for assess the situation correctly, making better decisions about rice pestilent and insect protection, crop protection, cut down the odd pesticides in environment. For solving these problems, Center of Water Resources Software had built a Web-GIS system for supervise the situation and forecast about some main rice pestilent and insects. This system has deployed for 4 pilot districts in 4 provinces (Hai Phong, Nghe An, Quang Ngai and Tien Giang) in 2008. Now, it has deployed and application for whole Hai Phong province. The system’s address in Internet is “http://ttbvtv.vtic.vn/bvtv”.

IT and remote sensing application in detection and warning of forest risk fire in Vietnam.

Nguyen Hong Minh, Forest Protection Department, MARD, Vietnam.

Forest Protection Department of Vietnam (FPD) has developed an automatic system for fire risk forecasting and hotspots early detection using Information Technology and Remote Sensing techniques. The results from this system are putted on a Website addressed (www.kiemlam.org.vn). The Sub FPDs in the provincial level are required to open this website to get the information three or four times per day.

- Fire risk forecasting: The data for this task is from Vietnam’s National Hydro-Meteorological Service. They send to FPD everyday in early afternoon through E-mail. At the FPD, a software has been developed to receive data, process them and put the result to the website automatically.

- Hotspots early detection: FPD has the hotspots result just only 30 minutes after each satellite flying over the station’s antenna. The remote sensing imagery receiving station at FPD named TeraScan and has been transferred from Seaspace Corporation of the USA. The station can receive about more than fifteen images everyday from both MODIS (Aqua, Terra) and NOAA (15, 17, 18).

IT application in water quality monitoring and disease warning in aquaculture. Nguyen Huu Nghia, Mai van Tai, Phan Thi Van. Research Institute for Aquaculture No.I, MARD,  VietNam

Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production sectors in Viet Nam and contributes significantly to the country economy. However, rapid development and a lack of planning lead to environment degradation and disease outbreaks that affect both production and quality. Aware about the problem, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has developed a monitoring and warning system of environment and disease for aquaculture through a series of steps as collecting, analyzing samples and posting warning announcements. The use of information technology for aquaculture environment and disease monitoring and warning is one of the advanced solution to 1) To develop a National central database for aquaculture environment and disease 2) To develop warning models, and other tools to support aquaculture farmers and decision makers have a better solution to deal with bad change of the environment and disease.

Web based technology and MySQL database have been chosen to develop the central database system. The monitoring of data on environment and disease have been updated by organizations under MARD. Warning models have been developed based on expert’s advice and knowledge and by using fuzzy logic application; integrated SMS tool used GMS modem and developed in house software. And other users supported such as warning announcement; fish, shrimp disease database, downloadable documents have been built up by web based technology.

National central database have updated data from 2004 and is continuously being updated. The warning model generates valuable information and results, and gives the users good information to deal with their situation. The web base GIS map is running well and is connected with the central database, users can also extract their wanted data from the map. SMS tool let users easy to report bad environment or disease to the system by mobile phone. 

The system has proven its advantages in supporting and providing information to aquaculture farmers and decision makers in monitoring and warning of environment and disease. Recognizing the contribution, MARD has a plan to develop the system further and to apply to others sectors of agriculture such as water resource, irrigation, soil, fresh vegetation, husbandry, and trade villages. The new proposal is being processed in MARD and is expected to start in June 2009 and end December 2012.