Practical lessons from TH Group enterprise

(Baonghean) Recently in Hanoi, the Department of International Cooperation (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) through the International Support Group (ISG) organized a policy dialogue forum on "Application of high technology in agriculture through public-private partnerships" between policy-making agencies, local authorities and businesses, with the goal of consulting on developing policies to encourage and cooperate in investing in high technology for agriculture.

At the conference, Ms. Thai Huong - General Director of Bac A Commercial Joint Stock Bank, Chairwoman of TH Group shared her experiences in advising TH Group to successfully build a large-scale industrial dairy farming model in Western Nghe An.

Nghe An Weekend respectfully introduces the basic content of Ms. Thai Huong's presentation.

In the world, there are many countries that have applied high technology to agricultural development and achieved many successes. A typical example is Israel - a semi-desert country with a harsh climate, but the quality of milk and agricultural products is rated as the top in the world. Every year, Israel exports about 3 billion USD of agricultural products and is one of the leading exporting countries in the world. Israel's most important experience in building a modern agriculture is investing in science and technology. Another example is the Netherlands - the average arable land area per person is about 0.058 hectares, the lowest in the world. However, the productivity of land in the Netherlands is the best in the world. Due to the lack of arable land, the Netherlands implements the strategy of "high investment - high production" with the development of irrigation and greenhouse systems. The greenhouse area of ​​the Netherlands is nearly 11,000 hectares, accounting for 25% of the total greenhouse area worldwide. Of which, up to 40% is used for vegetable production, 35% for flower production, 20% for fruit tree production, efficiency increases 5-6 times compared to outdoor production...

Deputy Prime Minister of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Somsavat Lengsavad and provincial leaders visited TH Group Farm.

The success in the field of high-tech application in agriculture of countries around the world will be a valuable experience for Vietnam to research, learn and develop the agricultural sector. Therefore, with the outstanding, pioneering, professional, and constantly improving mindset, for the true happiness of each person, the determination to enrich oneself legitimately, bringing sustainable value to investors and prosperity and happiness to the community, the North Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank has advised the TH Group to propose to the People's Committee of Nghe An province to be granted land to open a dairy farm and clean vegetables.

To obtain clean fresh milk products, TH Group has purchased all the technological secrets and dairy farming techniques from Israel and the world's leading processing processes from advanced countries. When purchasing the Israeli process, to ensure compliance with the process, TH invited experts and brought Israeli farmers to operate machinery and equipment, and at the same time guided and trained Vietnamese people. Currently, TH has a system working in a professional environment at all stages thanks to being directly managed by two multinational companies: Afikim Company of Israel for herd management and Totally Vets Company of New Zealand for veterinary management. In addition, they also advise on importing cows from New Zealand, Australia...

At the farm, cows are fed silage to kill bacteria, bathed and listened to music every day, and have chips attached to their legs to monitor their health most accurately to ensure the integrity of fresh milk throughout the process. Currently, the TH Group's cow breeding and milk processing project has basically completed phase 1 of the investment process with an investment capital of 350 million USD. The total investment scale of the project is 1.2 billion USD on a total area of ​​37,000 hectares (phase 1 is 8,100 hectares).

Former General Secretary Le Kha Phieu visited the Food Processing Operations Center.

On December 26, 2010, the first products from the fresh milk line named TH True MILK were officially distributed to consumers. This is a memorable historical milestone for TH Group because it has initially begun to carry out its mission of contributing to health care and enhancing the stature of Vietnamese people, improving the quality of life through truly fresh, clean, pure, and natural quality products for the health of everyone. This is also a milestone marking the development of the dairy industry in Vietnam.

The fact that TH Group has applied high technology to production in Nghia Dan has given the Western Nghe An a completely new look: an eco-tourism urban area in the future, people's lives have been raised and the quality of life has been significantly improved. High technology has helped to improve farming efficiency, turning 1 hectare of land here which previously only yielded an average harvest of about 50 million VND/year, now, thanks to growing grass, sorghum... using high technology, has yielded from 500 million VND - 1.5 billion VND/year.

Currently, TH Dairy Food Company is constructing the most modern milk processing factory in Southeast Asia with a capacity of 500 million liters/year. Currently, after nearly 2 years of operation, TH has become the leading supplier of clean fresh milk in Vietnam and with this growth, it is expected that by 2015, TH will meet about 50% of the demand for clean fresh milk in the market thanks to its self-sufficiency in raw materials. The total number of dairy cows of TH is currently more than 20,000, by the end of 2012 it was about 45,000 and will reach 137,000 by 2017, accounting for about 50% of the total herd of cows in the country. TH True Milk's net revenue in 2011 was over 1,000 billion VND; The 2012 plan was 3,700 billion VND, but due to the domestic and world economic crisis, it is expected that the revenue index of 3,700 billion VND will be achieved in early 2013.

Before TH entered the market, Vietnamese consumers had begun to understand more about the importance of fresh milk. Vietnamese dairy companies also began to build a strategy of self-sufficiency in raw materials through developing herds of cows. However, dairy farming to self-sufficiency in raw materials was still on a small scale and they still mainly purchased milk from farmers. When TH entered the market, self-sufficiency in domestic raw milk sources had a leap forward. This was clearly shown through the growth figures of Vietnam's dairy cow herd. Before 2009, the growth rate of the dairy cow herd was only 7-9%/year. However, starting from 2010, the dairy cow herd increased steadily by 15% each year. And this growth rate will be maintained until 2015, in which there is a great contribution from TH Group.

Sunflower fields as feed for dairy cows.

The success of TH Group will be an important step forward in developing the high-tech agricultural sector. However, to strongly develop this sector, there must be open, appropriate mechanisms and policies that attract investors and especially, need to attract investors with enough heart - mind - strength. Along with that, all levels, sectors and people need to have a correct view of the high-tech revolution and have a suitable communication strategy. When applying high technology, there must be enough resources such as land, therefore, the government needs to hand over clean land to enterprises to implement the project. It is necessary to train a high-quality workforce and have a policy to retrain workers for areas that apply high technology to agriculture.

It is necessary to issue technical standards on high technology in agriculture for commodity products. When there is a successful high-tech model, the governing ministry must issue standards, defining what is a high-tech product. If it is a food product such as milk, there must be inter-sectoral coordination with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Health... to regulate and distinguish what is clean, what is fresh milk, what is reconstituted milk... It is necessary to apply the principle of quality management and food safety along the chain for products manufactured according to high-tech processes: All product labels must fully state factors such as: Input origin of raw materials on product packaging to avoid controversy. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to closely monitor high-tech products, from input materials, production processes until the product is put into circulation on the market and be ready to coordinate with businesses to explain so that consumers understand the product.

The application of high technology will create a great revolution in agriculture, contributing significantly to the industrialization and modernization of the country.