Speaking at the online seminar "Digital transformation in the forestry sector, opportunities and challenges" organized by the Department of Forestry (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) in coordination with Nong thon ngay nay/Dan Viet Newspaper on November 17, Mr. Pham Hong Luong, Deputy Chief of Office of the Steering Committee for the Sustainable Forestry Development Target Program, said that on May 29, the Department of Forestry issued Plan No. 34 on enhancing capacity for information technology application.
Guests participating in the online discussion Digital transformation in the forestry sector, opportunities and challenges
In particular, focusing on key issues such as: maintaining, updating and upgrading the forestry sector's information system; promoting the maintenance, updating and synthesis of information data in the fields of forest management, trade and forest product processing; enhancing the capacity of staff, deploying the application of information technology for digital transformation in the sector.
"With such plans, we identify implementation roadmaps to meet the country's overall goal of digital transformation," said Mr. Luong.
Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, Deputy Director of the Forest Industry Research Institute (Vietnam Forestry Science Institute), shared that with management work, digital transformation helps the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the forestry sector grasp reserves, areas as well as forecast forest fires, thereby planning and building strategies to meet requirements faster and better.
In international trade, digital transformation helps businesses and forest growers grasp information faster. For example, the plant variety database will provide techniques, varieties, markets and help make industry information transparent, minimizing disputes...
The Institute has coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to build a database on human resources, science and technology; to develop digital software for management and traceability of legal timber; to build a database on forest resources and timber resources for appraisal, etc.
The Institute has applied digital technology in tracing the origin of wood, the process of harvesting and transporting wood to the factory; and received DART technology from the US Forest Service to help shorten the time for wood appraisal. This is considered a clear step of digital transformation in the Vietnamese forestry industry.
"Coordination with the US Forest Service has greatly helped with wood and plant appraisal, helping to determine whether our use of wood meets international conventions. Since applying US technology, the time for wood appraisal has been shortened to only about 10-15 minutes/sample instead of 2-3 days/sample as with the traditional method. This is of great value in state management and serving export enterprises," said Mr. Thanh.
Must build consistent digital database
In addition to the achieved results, the digital transformation of the forestry sector also faces certain difficulties. Mr. Pham Hong Luong said that because the sector has a large area and diverse subjects, officials, forest owners, and people in remote areas, the ability to access new knowledge and lessons in digital transformation is difficult.
"The forestry sector's ability to access resources and finance is also more difficult; the central budget for the sector is still limited," said Mr. Luong.
As someone who has spent a lot of time working in the forestry sector in management and is currently the Principal of the Forestry University, Professor - Dr. Pham Van Dien acknowledged that digital transformation in forestry is similar to other fields. In addition to common difficulties, the forestry sector also faces its own difficulties when pioneering in this process.
"Digital transformation must support forest owners with many related issues. In addition to capacity and resources, we must also consider possible situations, such as how to connect with cooperatives and businesses from existing databases, and how to process data fields?", Mr. Dien emphasized.
Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh said that the digital transformation of the forestry sector has achieved some achievements but basically there is no system. Units are building digital databases but there is no consistency across the sector.
Emphasizing that in the coming time, it is necessary to build a common, unified software for use across the industry to bring about the best efficiency, Mr. Thanh proposed a number of solutions to promote digital transformation in the forestry industry.
"It is necessary to pay attention to investing in training human resources for technology. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to pay more attention to resources for digital transformation in the forestry sector, as well as invest in specialized and specialized infrastructure and equipment such as forest resource inventory servers, unmanned equipment...", Mr. Thanh said.
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