Agriculture is the livelihood of 70 percent of Vietnamese.
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However, high prices, unequal quality, and the lack of information about products have all made it difficult to compete with Thai products of the same kinds in international and domestic markets.
Thai pepper is sold at VND150,000 per kilogram in the world market, while Vietnamese pepper is VND90,000. Deputy director of the Vietnam Agriculture Academy Dao The Anh said that Vietnam’s products will find it difficult to access high value chains if they do not use advanced technology.
Many smart agriculture solutions have been applied in the last few years. However, they have only assisted farmers in the production process, allowing them to automate irrigation or watch over the development of crops. Meanwhile, consumers are concerned about the origin of products.
In fact, some food processing and distribution companies have used product traceability technologies, but these are out-of-date technologies which are costly if used on a large scale.
The use of blockchain technology for data management was recently explained at the 2018 Spring Agriculture Forum.
One of the apps tracks down the origin of products. All distributors and farmers can check the status of products to find out where the products are, how many products the clients have ordered, and how many products are in stock.
The information allows them to optimize production plans, and predict demand for farm produce.
Scientists point out that blockchain use can bring benefits immediately. Use on a large scale won’t lead to an increase in cost, because the technology does not increase in price in accordance with the scale of use.
Vu Truong Ca, chair of Lina Network, one of the blockchain development companies, said there are blind spots in supply chains, and that blockchain can show exactly where a product is and its status.
Lina Network on April 24 reached an agreement with ChokChai, South East Asia’s milk cow farming group, S.A.P Siam Food and AIM THAI on the application of Lina Supply Chain technology to trace the origin and quality of agricultural products.
The Lina platform is optimized with a hybrid design, allowing the Lina supply chain to ensure real-time traceability of products, with three key strong points: transparency, optimization, and traceability. ■