The journey of "intellectualizing" farmers.

To have a professional agricultural sector, we need a professional workforce of farmers. To have a knowledge-based agricultural sector, farmers must be educated. "Educating" farmers through agricultural extension activities is carried out via information dissemination, training, and technology transfer… to spread knowledge and skills, helping farmers improve their skills, change their mindset and production practices, and access and master science and technology to become professional farmers. Over 30 years of development, agricultural extension activities in Thai Binh have made significant contributions to restructuring the agricultural sector in conjunction with building new rural areas.

The success of the demonstration models implemented by the Thai Binh Agricultural Extension Center has contributed to helping farmers change their production mindset and form large-scale farming areas.

Standing alongside farmers

After 30 years of construction and development, the agricultural extension system in Thai Binh province has been continuously strengthened and operates effectively, meeting the agricultural production requirements of the province. The agricultural extension staff, from the provincial to the grassroots level, regularly receive training to improve their skills in all aspects, enabling them to meet the demands of their assigned tasks. Agricultural extension activities are diverse, reaching many regions and target groups, creating significant improvements in productivity and quality, and have been recognized and highly appreciated by localities and farmers in the province.

During the years 1993-2003, the urgent need was to ensure national food security through agricultural production. Agricultural extension officers intensified their efforts in surveying, classifying, and successfully developing agricultural soil and land use maps for approximately 80% of the province's localities, providing a basis for local authorities to develop production plans. Technical measures such as determining crop varieties, planting seasons, sowing seedlings, manual transplanting, and balanced fertilization were extensively and comprehensively trained for farmers. Simultaneously, the Center researched, sought, and imported thousands of new rice varieties for testing and model development, identifying rice varieties suitable for the province's ecological conditions, with yields 2-3 times higher than older varieties, thus supplementing the province's crop variety structure. During the period from 1993 to 2003, the active contributions of the Agricultural Extension Center significantly boosted agricultural production in the province, increasing rice yield from 72.69 quintals/hectare/year (1991) to 126 quintals/hectare/year (2002), average per capita food production from 398 kg (1991) to 604 kg (2002); and the output of live meat for slaughter from 31.8 thousand tons (1991) to 60.6 thousand tons (2002).

From 2003 to 2013, agricultural extension work focused on the goal of transforming the structure of crop and livestock varieties. Through the implementation of trials and model building, new and effective crop and livestock varieties were recommended for widespread adoption, notably: BC15 rice, D.ưu 527, Lang Lieu glutinous rice, MX4 and MX10 glutinous corn, Kim Co Nuong melon, Bach Le melon, etc. In particular, the BC15 rice variety, developed by staff of the Thai Binh Agricultural Extension Center, has been filtered and propagated as a pure line by ThaiBinh Seed Group. Currently, BC15 is included in the province's rice variety structure and has reached nationwide recognition. The application of short-day rice varieties has changed the cropping pattern, representing a clear breakthrough in intensive rice cultivation in Thai Binh and making it one of the leading provinces in adopting a late spring - early summer cropping system. This paved the way for the development of winter crops in the province, with the development of crop rotation, intercropping, and multiple cropping models, many of which achieved 4-5 crops per year; models for converting spring and autumn rice crops on less productive rice-growing land to high -economic- value vegetable crops were strongly promoted.

From 2013 to the present, closely following the industry's orientation towards developing ecological, efficient, and sustainable agriculture aimed at increasing added value, competitiveness, linking product consumption, ensuring food safety, national food security, and protecting the ecological environment, agricultural extension activities have focused on supporting farmers producing commodities, applying advanced intensive farming techniques, and utilizing mechanization, Industry 4.0 technology, and digital transformation in production. It encourages the development of green agriculture, organic agriculture, and circular agriculture. It shifts from a mindset of agricultural production to an agricultural economics mindset; organizing agricultural production along value chains, based on science and technology and digital transformation.

"Educating" farmers in the new era.

Mr. Tran Minh Hung, Director of the Thai Binh Agricultural Extension Center, stated: Agriculture is becoming a modern business sector, instead of relying solely on experience. Especially in the context of epidemics, climate change, market fluctuations, and shifting consumer trends, agricultural producers must update their knowledge and skills to enrich their intellect, to think more deeply, see further, and have a broader perspective. "Educating" farmers, improving their educational level, professional skills, and expertise in production management, business, and agricultural trade continues to be a top priority in agricultural extension activities.

"Educating" farmers is linked to the process of reorganizing production, developing farmers' organizations; classifying farming households to provide different support solutions such as training, consulting, and information services for agricultural development; building several "innovative" models in agriculture suitable for different groups of farming households; enhancing the capacity of state public service organizations and diversifying forms of information provision for farmers.

Innovate the content and methods of agricultural extension activities to suit the level of production development, applying the "group extension" method so that farmers influence each other, with extension officers only guiding and encouraging. Shift from "hands-on" extension to consultation and suggestion. Based on the application of information technology advances, build and supplement more complete channels for disseminating agricultural extension information on smartphones and the internet such as: SMS messages, Facebook social network, Zalo groups, agricultural industry websites, digital transformation, provincial agricultural database software… to provide farmers with technical documents, manuals, and instructional videos on production techniques conveniently and quickly, reducing printing costs. At the same time, create conditions for two-way communication, helping people report necessary issues and shortcomings in the production process to functional units and authorities at all levels.

The 30-year journey of building and developing has affirmed the role and mission of agricultural extension work in the development of Thai Binh's agricultural sector. In the coming years, the agricultural extension system will continue to build on its achievements and good experiences, constantly innovating its content and methods to improve the quality and effectiveness of agricultural extension activities, meeting the increasingly high demands of production practice and the expectations of farmers, living up to the expectations of the head of the agricultural sector: "Wherever there are farmers - there is agricultural extension."

Ngan Huyen

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