In the new period, the forestry sector faces many challenges, such as: violations of deforestation and encroachment on forest land still occur, unsustainable exploitation of forest resources leads to degradation of forest ecosystems; increasing commercial competition for wood products, requiring clear origin of forest products...
Therefore, the former Minister said that it is necessary to strengthen more effective management solutions to manage, protect and develop sustainable forest resources, at the same time, enhance the multi-use value of forest ecosystems and ensure that forest products have legal origins.
"Now is the time for us to develop simultaneously, both maintaining momentum from the market and exploring new momentum from science, technology and innovation," said Mr. Phat.
Taking agriculture as an example, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) pointed out that it took decades for the price of Vietnamese rice to increase from 450 to 600 USD/ton. However, with just one technological product - ST25 rice - the threshold of 1,000 USD/ton was conquered within a few years.
On that basis, Mr. Cao Duc Phat proposed that relevant units in the forestry industry should seek new values, added values, and build a sustainable forestry industry for the livelihoods of more than 20 million people living on forests.
Regarding the Forestry University, the former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development advised that the school must be a pioneer in popularizing new biotechnologies such as gene editing so that new varieties can be produced faster, more accurately and cheaper when they reach forest owners.
Former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat speaking at the Workshop
"In developing science and technology, the first and most important factor is people. From there, we can come up with initiatives," he said.
Sharing more about the technologies being applied in the forestry sector, Director Tran Quang Bao said that seed technology helps improve the productivity and quality of planted forests. This is especially useful when Vietnam replants about 260,000 hectares of forest each year and there is not much room for developing the planted forest area.
According to Mr. Bao, the average productivity of planted forests in our country is currently about 15-18 m3/ha/year, quite low compared to the productivity in the experimental model of 30 m3/ha/year. Therefore, research and selection of new varieties not only helps expand the area of large timber forests, but also facilitates the issuance of sustainable forest management certificates, or recently, forest planting area codes.
In addition to seed technology, digital technology in remote sensing to check and monitor forest status, as well as update forest data, warn of forest fires... automatically, helps local forest rangers grasp changes in forests. From there, it helps reduce manpower and increase information accuracy.
Since 2013, the General Department of Forestry (formerly) has built the Forestry Management Information System (FORMIS System). This system plays a fundamental role in receiving, integrating, and connecting specialized software and applications, serving the purpose of updating data, forming a specialized forestry database system.
Currently, many data have been integrated into the system such as forest resource data, national forest survey data of 5 cycles, data on suitable site conditions for afforestation, data on payment for forest environmental services, coastal forest data, information on forest planting seasons...
Finally, there is wood processing technology. The Director of the Forestry Department informed that, in terms of export value, Vietnam is second in the world, only after China, with a turnover of about 16 billion USD/year.
To maintain the growth of exports, Mr. Bao said that it is necessary to further improve the technology of processing wooden products for export, because Vietnam is using about 70-80% of raw materials from domestically grown wood. However, local wood is mostly eucalyptus, acacia, pine, etc. with small sizes, not really suitable for producing and processing high-end products.
Delegates attending the workshop also heard many presentations on the application of technology in monitoring and managing forest resources, as well as silvicultural techniques and breeding technology suitable for current market requirements....
The workshop is part of a series of programs aimed at celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the University of Forestry and a series of other major events such as the traditional day of agriculture and rural development, the traditional day of forestry and Vietnamese Teachers' Day.
Also on the morning of November 15, the University of Forestry cut the ribbon to open the Exhibition of Training - Science and Technology - International Cooperation on the school campus.
Source: https://www.mard.gov.vn/Pages/cong-nghe-so-giong-va-che-bien-la-tru-cot-chinh-cua-nganh-lam-nghiep.aspx?item=2
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