The digital revolution is reshaping Dak Lak’s agricultural sector, enabling farmers and enterprises not only to enhance competitiveness but also to build a sustainable, transparent and modern agriculture.

At Coffee 15 One Member Limited Liability Company, based in Ea Tul commune, traditional production management methods using notebooks to record fertilisation and irrigation schedules have become a thing of the past. Today, the management of more than 650 hectares of coffee in Dak Lak is handled efficiently through computers and smartphones.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are deployed across large-scale model fields in Dak Lak.

Lieutenant Colonel Le Trung Thanh, Director of Coffee 15 One Member Limited Liability Company, said the application of digital technology has delivered dual benefits, reducing labour and input costs by around 20 per cent, ensuring product uniformity, and fostering a more scientific working style among officers and employees. “Electronic production diaries form the database for connection to the national traceability portal, creating a distinct advantage for our ‘Soldier’s Coffee’ brand in accessing demanding markets”, Mr Thanh said.

Beyond large enterprises, many farmers and cooperatives have also actively embraced digital transformation to standardise their products. According to Mai Dinh Tho, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Krong Pac Clean Agricultural Services Cooperative, the cooperative has 186 members cultivating more than 200 hectares of durian. Many members have applied digital technologies to manage and monitor crop health, thereby enhancing transparency in production stages. This transparency provides each durian with a clear “identity”, enabling the cooperative to meet stringent market requirements.

Identifying agriculture as a key economic pillar, Dak Lak has vigorously implemented resolutions on digital transformation, prioritising the digitisation of agricultural data.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the provincial agricultural sector has focused on building shared databases, from soil and hydrological maps to systems managing planting area codes. To date, in crop production, the province has digitised traceability data for 321 planting area codes and 52 export-qualified packing facilities, along with 74 planting area codes meeting domestic traceability requirements. Four smart pest monitoring stations using iMetos meteorological technology and leaf wetness sensors have been installed to improve disease forecasting accuracy. Notably, Dak Lak is among the first 16 provinces nationwide to complete integration with the national land database, with more than 1.84 million land parcels digitised.

Durian is one of Dak Lak’s key agricultural products.

In response to challenges posed by the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the provincial agricultural sector has coordinated with IDH, JDE and Simexco Dak Lak to collect and digitise traceability data for coffee-growing households in compliance with EUDR due diligence requirements, covering around 90,000 of 214,000 hectares, equivalent to approximately 42 percent of the province’s coffee area.

Le Duc Huy, Chairman of the Members’ Council of Simexco Dak Lak, affirmed that digital data serve as a “passport” enabling Dak Lak’s agricultural produce to overcome the most stringent technical barriers. Together with his colleagues, he developed EUDR software solutions and established standardised data collection processes, including land legal documentation, GPS polygon mapping, digitised cultivation records and traceability systems down to individual households. The initiative also includes a “negligible risk” assessment mechanism, coordination with local authorities to verify land-use rights, and the deployment of early warning tools for deforestation risks.

Thanks to these solutions, major bottlenecks facing agricultural products from the Central Highlands, including data gaps, limited traceability and lack of transparency, have been fundamentally addressed.

Translated by KHUONG THAO