Agricultural officers in Vietnam's Mekong River Delta upgrading rice production management with a digitized reporting and monitoring system

Designed to address the need for enhancement and digitalization of the existing rice reporting system, the Rice Production Monitoring and Reporting system (RiceMoRe) is increasingly capturing the attention and garnering high demand from local officers across multiple provinces in Vietnam. In response to this growing interest, a series of training workshops were conducted in six provinces within the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region, including Long An, Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, An Giang, and Bac Lieu. These training sessions were participated by nearly 200 officers at the commune, district, and province levels.

RiceMoRe, a collaborative effort between the Department of Crop Production (DCP), Center for Agriculture Digital Transformation and Statistics (DTS) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), introduces an innovative solution to digitize and enhance the monitoring and reporting processes for rice production. Accessible via both a web-based platform (https://ricemore.org) and a mobile application, RiceMoRe aims to streamline and standardize the collection and analysis of rice production data for improved accuracy, timeliness, and accessibility of decision-support information.

In the initial phase, DCP and IRRI conducted a pilot of RiceMoRe in three provinces within MRD – Vinh Long, Can Tho, and Kien Giang. The system initially operated during the 2023 autumn-winter cropping season. Owing to the growing interest expressed by officers from various provinces in adopting RiceMoRe, a technical team of officers from the pilot provinces was assembled. Subsequently, a Training of Trainers session was organized to equip them for the forthcoming expansion of the technology throughout the entire delta region. This signifies a notable demand and interest from officers in incorporating RiceMoRe into their practices.

Trainees regarded the digitized system as convenient and suitable for managing and monitoring rice production progress from the local level, contributing to the national agricultural digitalization objectives. The feedback from trainees, addressing both strengths and shortcomings of the RiceMoRe platform, is valuable for ongoing improvement. Since the implementation of the system is still in the early stages, local officers also requested for continuing support from IRRI scientists and software developers. This underscores the sustained interest and reliance on collaborative efforts for the effective integration of RiceMoRe into their operational framework.

Localities are set to assign reporting and data entry units, initiating the use of the platform for the current winter-spring cropping season of 2023-2024. The RiceMoRe system is currently operational in nine provinces within MRD. Plans are underway for its extension to cover the entire delta region and to be introduced in other regions of Vietnam, including the Red River Delta. This expansion signifies the increasing integration of RiceMoRe as a pivotal tool for comprehensive agricultural monitoring and reporting across diverse regions of the country.

A New Zealand Government-funded partnership with IRRI in support of the objectives of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.

This activity is part of the CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas.