Expanding synchronous mechanization in the fields

Field mechanization is currently focused on two rice crops. To promote mechanization, our province has a support mechanism for organizations and people in the process of investing in equipment. Since 2011, implementing the new rural construction program, the province has supported agricultural service cooperatives and farmers to buy agricultural machines such as plows, transplanters, combine harvesters, etc.

According to Resolution No. 03/2022/NQ-HDND dated April 20, 2022 of the Provincial People's Council on promulgating regulations on policies to support agricultural production and rural development in Ha Nam province, there are specific regulations on support policies for machines, including: transplanters, tray seedling sowing machines, straw rolling machines, remote-controlled aircraft for spraying fertilizers and pesticides. At the same time, the province also implemented the Project on developing tray seedling and machine planting for the period 2021 - 2023, supporting specialized groups and cooperatives to provide tray seedling, machine planting, tray seedling sowing machines and more than 20,000 trays of seedlings/facility, cooperative. During the implementation process, machine-planted rice models with an area of ​​20 hectares in the same field were built for replication. The Agricultural Extension Center (Department of Agriculture and Environment) has built a number of synchronous mechanization models in all stages of land preparation, planting, spraying fertilizers, pesticides and harvesting. However, in some production stages, the application of mechanization is still limited, such as: planting, spraying pesticides...

Production practice shows that in many localities, the implementation of mechanization in the fields is unstable, only maintaining 1-2 crops. For example, at Nhan Phuc Agricultural Cooperative, Phu Phuc Commune (Ly Nhan), in the spring crop of 2024, the Agricultural Extension Center supported the construction of a model of bringing mechanization into the fields with an area of ​​20 hectares. From this model, the locality has expanded the form of machine-transplanted rice to nearly 90% of the total area (more than 100 hectares); up to 50% of the cooperative's rice area uses remote-controlled aircraft to spray pesticides. However, the application of mechanization on a large area of ​​the cooperative can only be maintained in 2024. In the spring crop of 2025, the area of ​​machine-transplanted rice in the locality decreased by 70% compared to the previous spring crop. According to Mr. Tran Ngoc Phu, Director of Nhan Phuc Agricultural Cooperative, machine-transplanted rice is currently not produced in a concentrated manner but is scattered across many fields in the locality. Therefore, it is also difficult to deploy remote-controlled aircraft to spray pesticides, because the fields do not produce the same varieties, the same tea...

Mechanization of land preparation in Chau Giang ward (Duy Tien town).

Although most stages of agricultural production have been done quite well, many localities still face difficulties in introducing machinery into a new stage of production. At Tuong Linh Agricultural Service Cooperative, Tuong Linh Ward (Kim Bang Town), mechanization has been implemented quite effectively in many stages such as: land preparation and harvesting 100% of the area, rice transplanting machines on more than 80% of the area, but the use of machinery in spraying pesticides has not been widely implemented. In 2024, the Cooperative has just built a model of more than 10 hectares of rice spraying pesticides using remote-controlled aircraft. It is unlikely that it will be able to be replicated in most areas in 2025. Mr. Nguyen Van Sam, Director of Tuong Linh Agricultural Service Cooperative, said: The locality has mechanized most stages of production. Spraying pesticides and fertilizing with remote-controlled aircraft is currently limited, as people do not really believe in the effectiveness. Therefore, the cooperative will continue to maintain the model and increase propaganda to people to expand its application in the coming seasons.

In fact, there are still many difficulties and limitations in bringing synchronous mechanization to the fields, because currently, people's production is still fragmented, on a field of 10 - 20 hectares, there are up to hundreds of households producing, each household doing it in its own way. Meanwhile, to bring mechanization to the fields, especially new stages such as: sowing, spraying pesticides... it is necessary to have a large enough field to produce the same variety, the same tea, the same care process. On the local side, because agricultural service cooperatives have not really done a good job of regional planning, organizing production and propaganda so that people can clearly see the effectiveness of mechanized production. Another problem is that people only calculate the immediate costs, not the long-term effectiveness. For example, machine-transplanted rice has quite high service costs, while direct sowing by hand is quite fast and can be done by oneself, but it still takes time to trim, has many pests and diseases, and lower productivity... Therefore, in many places, weedy rice grows a lot, causing crop failure. After 1-2 crops, people have to switch to machine-transplanted rice (eliminating weedy rice), and then go back to direct sowing.

The introduction of synchronous mechanization into the fields has brought about good results in many aspects. In particular, applying the method of transplanting rice by machine, the average cost is from 300 - 320 thousand VND/sao (including seed cost), while hiring manual labor is at an average of 350 thousand VND/day, in some places up to 400 - 500 thousand VND/day; hiring tray seeding services, machine transplanting, people do not have to work on the land, sow rice seedlings, pull rice seedlings... like manual transplanting; using remote-controlled aircraft to spray plant protection chemicals ranges from 20 - 25 thousand VND/sao/spray, manual spraying is 30 - 35 thousand VND/sao, ensuring uniformity, saving more than 10% of the amount of chemicals compared to spraying individual tanks. Mechanization helps free up labor to switch to other occupations that bring higher income, especially now that a large number of young rural workers are shifting to work as workers...

With the reality of agricultural production in the province, especially the two rice crops, which are developing in a concentrated direction, creating commodity products, the introduction of synchronous mechanization into the fields will help promote efficiency and increase income for people.

Manh Hung

Source: https://baohanam.com.vn/kinh-te/nong-nghiep/mo-rong-co-gioi-hoa-dong-bo-tren-dong-ruong-157201.html