Stealing at field

RYNAN researches and develops smart solutions applied to digital transformation in agriculture. One of the solutions we have been experimenting since 2020 is the insect monitoring map, which helps farmers and relevant authorities access information about insects through a mobile application.

Over the past decade, the global insect population has decreased by over 41%. Among them, butterflies have decreased by 53%, bees by 46%, and one-third of other insect species are at risk of extinction, negatively impacting one-third of the human food supply as they play a crucial role in pollinating crops.

One of the reasons for the decline in insect populations is the misuse of non-specific pesticides. They kill both harmful pests and beneficial predators, destroy habitats, reduce biodiversity, and disrupt ecosystems. Moreover, pesticides also have adverse effects on human health and increase production costs.

Our goal is to gradually reduce and ultimately eliminate the use of pesticides in agricultural cultivation, making Vietnamese agricultural products cleaner, free from harmful chemicals. Additionally, we aim to help farmers mitigate health risks and achieve better incomes.

The insect monitoring map is primarily built upon the daily collection of data on pests and beneficial insects from Intelligent Monitoring Stations (IMS) installed in rice fields, fruit orchards, and industrial forests.

IMS stations are constructed using stainless steel with protective fencing and operate automatically using solar energy. They include solar panels, lithium batteries, LED lights, sampling chambers, AI cameras, and sampling chamber cleaning units. Additionally, IMS stations are equipped with meteorological systems, including devices for measuring rainfall, sunlight, wind speed and direction, as well as air temperature and humidity. All these components are interconnected and operate synchronously with a dedicated computer system for remote insect monitoring.

LED lights are used to attract insects in the IMS device.

Leveraging remote sensing data, crop logs, weather information, insect species and populations can be predicted with high accuracy up to 12 days in advance. By the end of 2023, we had installed 79 IMS stations, mainly concentrated in the Mekong Delta. In 2020, the IFAD-AMD Tra Vinh organization sponsored the installation of 10 IMS stations in the rice fields of Tra Vinh.

In rice cultivation, the brown planthopper (BPH) causes yellow dwarf and ragged stunt diseases, causing significant economic losses to farmers. The green stink bug (MRB) is a natural enemy of the brown planthopper. Each day, a green stink bug can eat 7-10 eggs and 1-5 brown planthoppers. Farmers here use mobile phones to access information about BPH and MRB. They are advised not to spray pesticides when the weekly average BPH/MRB ratio is below 2. From 2021 to 2023, farmers with fields near the IMS stations in Tra Vinh did not spray BPH pesticides, the average total BPH population decreased by 65.5%, and MRB increased by 269.4%. Similar results were also recorded in Dong Thap, Soc Trang, and other provinces over the past 3 years.

IMS (worth millions VND) in remote fields has no guards.

While the fight against the brown planthopper is progressing well, we and the farmers are facing another problem: the theft of digital technology equipment.

Despite having fences around them, all three IMS stations installed in Vi Thuy district, Hau Giang province, had their lithium-ion batteries, AI cameras, and other important electronic components stolen. Thieves broke the fences, dismantled the components and electronic parts, and then sold them at flea markets and technology stores for 1-2 million dong each device.

Meanwhile, the entire IMS system is worth hundreds of millions of dong. Without the equipment, the machines cannot operate and insect data collection is interrupted, greatly affecting the forecasting and warning of pest outbreaks in rice and crops. This also disrupts the process of building a large local insect database.

The IMS stations are all located in the middle of fields or on large areas, and there is no manpower from the security forces to monitor these "field thieves". Recently, we have self-funded the restoration of these IMS stations and installed additional GPS circuits on the parts that are often stolen. Hopefully, this solution will quickly detect the bad guys.

Another long-term solution, in my opinion, is to widely promote the benefits of the insect monitoring network to the community and to each farmer's own field. Once the awareness, knowledge and responsibility of all local people are raised, the theft of public property will be reduced.

In line with the current digital transformation in Vietnam's agriculture, in the coming days, hundreds of thousands of digital devices will be installed in the fields to automatically collect data on the status of soil, water, crops, insects, weather, etc. IMS stations will not be the only targets for thieves in the fields.

If we turn a blind eye to the theft of this technology, it's like letting thieves steal a little and the community lose a lot. Our efforts to bring digital advancements to farms risk being a mere drop in the ocean.

Reference:

Dr.Nguyen Thanh My, Ra đồng ăn trộm, VN Express, (17th Feb 2024)