Fujitsu, others to test IT monitoring of fields, prices

HANOI -- A Japanese team including Fujitsu engineers will test the use of remote monitoring to help Vietnamese farmers improve crop yields and keep track of produce prices.

The effort begins this month. The team will install several dozen sensors on a 1,000-sq.-meter farm in Vietnam's Ha Nam Province to monitor weather, soil and growth conditions in nearly real time. Fujitsu will build the system, while Aeon Agri Create will analyze the data in Japan to provide guidance to Vietnamese farmers.

Aeon Agri Create, a subsidiary of retail group Aeon, runs 19 farms in Japan. The team also includes the Japan International Cooperation Agency and Ha Nam Province.

The Vietnamese Women's Union will work with the team to create a database of produce prices at local markets. Farmers will be able to track the prices using a smartphone application.

Vietnam's complex produce distribution network, which involves multiple layers of wholesalers, makes it difficult for growers to know what prices their fruits and vegetables sell for at the retail level. Gaining such insight into the market could help them plant more profitable crops.

Fujitsu has collaborated with FPT, Vietnam's biggest IT company, since last fall on tech solutions for hothouse farming. The latest experiment, which focuses on outdoor farming, will have more relevance to ordinary growers.

Though agriculture involves 47% of Vietnam's population, it contributed less than one-fifth of gross domestic product in 2014. Vietnamese farmers earn an average of about $70 a month, less than half of the roughly $155 income of the typical urban minimum-wage worker. The country's low agricultural productivity owes partly to the lack of systematic approaches. - Nikkei Asian Review