Issues Regarding Promoting the Role of Farmers in the Red River Delta in the Context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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The application of information technology in state agencies is still fragmented, so the efficiency is not high, the common database for people and businesses has not been built, the specialized application system has not been connected to exchange data and connect operations, there is no common database. The connection and interconnection of the local "electronic one-stop shop" system with the "electronic one-stop shop" system of ministries and branches has not been implemented. The wide area network (WAN) system in many localities has only been deployed to the district level, while the commune level is connected to the e-government via the internet, so speed and security are not guaranteed. The application software in the system is still difficult to use on smartphones and iPads, so it does not meet the requirements of exploitation and use of users. Communication work on e-government has been deployed, however, the effectiveness is not high, due to the problem of awareness, the level of computer and internet usage of people and businesses is still limited, so the exploitation and use of online public services by people and businesses is not high. The majority of people still do not know which administrative procedures are handled by which level and the circulation of documents is still roundabout, prolonged, and prone to loss.

Subjective causes

- For farmers in the Red River Delta:

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First of all, the awareness of the majority of farmers in the Red River Delta about the 4.0 Industrial Revolution is still vague. Most farmers are not fully aware of the comprehensive impact of this revolution on agricultural production, political life, culture, society and their living environment; they are not deeply aware of the opportunities and challenges that this revolution brings; and their role as the subject in agricultural and rural development in the Red River Delta.

In addition, farmers still have a heavy mentality and style of small farmers , which is expressed in the mentality of keeping the land, hindering the accumulation and concentration of land, only seeing immediate benefits; the mentality of relying on the state and enterprises; lacking positivity, initiative, dynamism and creativity, lacking market thinking and agricultural business thinking.

In the context of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the capacity of farmers in the region is still limited, not meeting development requirements : educational level, production planning capacity, production organization capacity, production capacity according to the correct process and standards; capacity to apply modern technology to production; capacity to link in production; market thinking; limited political awareness and legal awareness...

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Most farmers, farm owners and farmer business owners still lack understanding of regulations, rules and legal sanctions in the global competitive environment, and lack essential information about the market, intellectual property rights, product origin, brand and label of the product... especially lack of information about competitors in Europe, North America, Japan. Orientation and information about long-range and short-range forecasts in agricultural production in our country are still weak. Most farmers grow crops and raise livestock based on their feelings or on the psychology of the majority. Therefore, agricultural products cannot occupy the high-quality market and quickly become stagnant due to the imbalance between supply and demand and because of internal competition that weakens each other.

Although the Red River Delta is the region with the highest level of education in the country, in general, the majority of farmers in the region have low levels of education, scientific and technical expertise, limited economic thinking capacity, and foreign language proficiency. Due to the influence of backward agricultural production practices and arbitrary habits, it is difficult to access opportunities for effective integration. They even become the most vulnerable and disadvantaged group when our country participates in the globalization process. Due to massive investment from companies, many industrial parks, export processing zones, and urban areas have been built, leading to a situation where many rural areas have to cede most of their fields and gardens to receive a small amount of compensation, but this money is not used effectively, making the already difficult situation of farmers even more difficult. Therefore, many farmers have left their fields and villages to go to the city to find short-term seasonal jobs to make a living. Farmers losing their land and becoming increasingly unemployed is a common social phenomenon in the Red River Delta and poses many potential risks of causing political and social instability in the region. Creating jobs for them after losing their land is an urgent task, of profound social and humane significance.

- For farmers' organizations in the Red River Delta:

The role of many agricultural cooperatives in the Red River Delta is still weak. In the context of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, cooperatives play a very important role in promoting the development of high-tech agriculture and the high-tech agricultural value chain of the Red River Delta. With the current fragmented and small-scale production characteristics, cooperatives are the "extended arm" between farming households and businesses, while helping to provide input materials, instructing people in production according to the process, ensuring output for agricultural products. However, according to the assessment of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,

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The results of the study show that cooperatives still face many difficulties in their operations. In fact, many cooperatives have small production and business scales and a small number of members. The process of expanding the number of members, business scale, capital accumulation, and assets is slow. In addition, the average number of members of an agricultural cooperative is small and tends to decrease. The small scale and low capital cause many difficulties for cooperatives in expanding operations and developing new activities and in accessing state support. Low capital and slow capital accumulation also negatively affect access to credit capital of agricultural cooperatives. Notably, although in recent years, the rate of cooperatives participating in the value chain has increased steadily every year, it is still low. Many cooperatives have value chain linkages, but the rate of products participating in linkages is very low, the rate of cooperatives with post-harvest activities such as preliminary processing, processing, and product trading is still low. Meanwhile, participating in the value chain and applying science and technology are important activities for cooperatives to attract members, create added value for members and cooperatives, and ensure the sustainable development of agricultural cooperatives.

The role of the Farmers' Association at all levels in the rural areas of the Red River Delta is still vague. Currently, there are many shortcomings at all levels in rural areas in terms of organization, staff, as well as content and methods of operation. The organizational system is still lacking in uniformity. The staff is still limited in quality and especially there are no unified regulations and instructions from competent authorities on organization, apparatus, and staffing for the provincial and district levels. In some localities in the region, the Association has not actively innovated the content and methods of operation and especially there is no mechanism and policy to directly participate in implementing socio-economic development activities, so both the content and methods of operation are still general and formal. The situation of "empty" propaganda and mobilization is still very common, not meeting the urgent needs of members and farmers in terms of capital; materials, machinery, equipment; science and technology; product consumption markets... to develop production and business.

Other socio-political organizations in the rural political system are still cumbersome and operate ineffectively. The role of the Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations has not been fully promoted. Sometimes, in implementation, they are still passive, not self-conscious, even relying on the leadership of the Party Committee, not proactively proposing and directly implementing contents related to agricultural development and new rural construction. In addition, the launching of some contents in the movement to join hands in developing agriculture and rural areas by some organizations is still general and unrealistic; most organizations

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The organizations have programs to coordinate the implementation and launch the movement, but lack a systematic summary, evaluation, and experience drawing. The capacity of the staff, union members, and association members at the grassroots level in some places has not met the requirements of the task. Most of the union officials at the grassroots level have grown up from practice, and have received little basic training, so their understanding, working capacity, and ability to mobilize the masses are still limited. In some organizations, propaganda and mobilization are still formal and superficial, the propaganda methods are not really scientific and not close to reality; in some places, the sense of responsibility and exemplary behavior of union members and association members in voluntarily participating in and contributing to the construction of new rural areas are not high, and have not created a nucleus and example in disseminating and propagating for people of all walks of life to voluntarily participate in implementation.

3.3. ISSUES ARISING IN PROMOTING THE ROLE OF FARMERS IN THE RED RIVER DELTA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

3.3.1. The contradiction between the requirement to promote the role of farmers in the context of the fourth industrial revolution and the limited awareness and capacity of farmers in the Red River Delta

In the context of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, the development of 4.0 agriculture, digital agriculture, and high-tech agriculture requires compatible 4.0 farmers, digital farmers, and high-tech farmers because farmers are the direct and fundamental production force of agriculture. Farmers today must have market thinking, must have the capacity to organize production, the capacity to apply 4.0 technology, the capacity to calculate business, the capacity to link with other entities in the agricultural value chain... Only then can farmers stand firm and develop in the context of globalization and the 4.0 Industrial Revolution.

However, in reality, the awareness of most farmers in the Red River Delta about the opportunities and challenges brought by globalization and the 4th Industrial Revolution, and the inevitability of developing high-tech agriculture is still vague. They also do not fully understand their role as the subject in developing agriculture and rural areas in the Red River Delta.

In addition, farmers' ability to adapt to the 4.0 Industrial Revolution is still limited and inadequate. First of all, the cultural and technical level of farmers in the region is still low , the number of untrained agricultural, forestry and fishery workers is up to 91.07%; trained but without a diploma or certificate is 4.25%; primary vocational level and with professional and technical certificates is 2.07%; intermediate vocational and intermediate professional level accounts for 1.28%; college, university level and above accounts for only 1.27% [149, p.507].

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The capacity to plan and organize the implementation of production plans of the majority of farmers is still weak and ineffective . Farming households have production plans, but the level of implementation of the plan is not effective, lacking a comprehensive vision for the family's production activities in each crop and throughout the year. With the thought that "farming cannot be planned" because it depends on the weather and market, the mentality of "go with the flow" is still deeply rooted in the thinking and working methods of farmers in the Red River Delta. There are households that make plans but do not maintain and comply with those plans. Either due to poor calculation or due to the habit of doing business haphazardly that is deeply rooted in the thinking of farmers and is not easy to change. This is a major obstacle to the transformation of agricultural production methods towards modernity.

The capacity to apply high technology to agricultural production , especially the capacity to use information technology of farmers in the Red River Delta is still limited. The majority of farmers in the Red River Delta still face many difficulties in using the internet, social networks, using software for high-tech agricultural production, consuming agricultural products on e-commerce platforms...

Production capacity according to the correct process and standards has not met the increasingly high demands of the domestic and international markets. Farmers still rely mainly on qualitative experience, rarely on quantitative data, and have almost no information about parameters on their own cultivated land such as weather, light, rainfall or minerals. This problem leads to the weakness that farmers do not know about their natural advantages or do not know how to protect their long-term interests, but only pursue short-term interests, for example, causing imbalance in the ecosystem, natural environment, affecting biodiversity that nature takes a long time to accumulate.

Regarding the capacity to link with other entities in implementing the high-tech agricultural value chain, there is still a limitation. A large number of farmers in the Red River Delta are still familiar with traditional agricultural production methods, not familiar with production according to the process and standards of high-tech agricultural value chains. The phenomenon of farmers violating contracts for linking production and consumption of agricultural products is still quite common. In addition, most farmers in the region still lack knowledge about international economic integration , lack of understanding of regulations, rules, legal sanctions in the global competitive environment, and lack of essential information about the market, intellectual property rights, product origin, brand, and product labeling, etc.

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Farmers in the Red River Delta are still heavily influenced by the mentality and style of small farmers, which is manifested in the mentality of farmers holding on to their fields, hindering the accumulation and concentration of land, only seeing immediate benefits; the mentality of relying on the state and enterprises; the lack of positivity, initiative, dynamism and creativity, and the lack of market thinking and agricultural business thinking. The orientation and information on long-range and short-range forecasting in agricultural production in our country are still weak. Most farmers grow crops and raise livestock based on their feelings or on the psychology of the majority. Therefore, agricultural products cannot capture the high-quality market and quickly become stagnant due to the imbalance between supply and demand.

3.3.2. The contradiction between the requirement for a complete and synchronous institution to promote the role of farmers in agricultural and rural development to adapt to the fourth industrial revolution and the shortcomings and limitations in current mechanisms and policies

Institutions and policies play a particularly important role, creating a legal corridor for the development of agriculture, farmers and rural areas in the context of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The new context requires the need to perfect and synchronize institutions and policies for agricultural, farmer and rural development to adapt to the requirements of the 4th Industrial Revolution. This is not only a technological revolution but also a revolution in institutions and policies. With the strong development of digital technology creating new models, new, rapid, explosive labor forces... the traditional institutional framework is no longer suitable, and if maintained, it will hinder development. In addition, to build digital infrastructure, digital resource platforms, digital service economic ecosystems, digital institutions and policies are an important and pioneering task. That is the national digital legal framework, laws on e-commerce, information security, digital sovereignty, protection of personal data, intellectual property...

Currently, there are too many documents related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas, many of which have the same regulations, lack of evaluation and feedback, leading to overlapping and slow improvement; lack of strategic integration, and lack of policy tool linkage are quite common. On the other hand, although the system of policies is quite large, the actual implementation still has many limitations and the impact of these policies is quite vague. Many macro-level supports are still "suspended orientation" when not put into practice due to the lack of specific local policies. Lack of "leverage" policies, slow to catch up with development practices, lack of synchronization and breakthrough.

Currently, there is no official document related to digital transformation of agriculture and rural areas in the context of Industry 4.0. Institutions and legal regulations for digital transformation

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and Vietnam's digital economic activities are assessed to be slow to complete. Our country has not yet issued a comprehensive national strategy on developing the digital economy and digital society; there is no legal corridor for piloting the application of new business and service models. The system of issued legal documents is not synchronous, overlapping, even contradictory, and not suitable for the requirements of digital transformation and digital economic development. There is a lack of regulations on data transactions, protection of databases, personal data, private information, as well as creating trust in the digital space; there is a lack of regulations on personal rights and ethics when applying artificial intelligence; regulations on digital identity, identification and electronic authentication for people are slow to be issued.

Digital transformation of agriculture and rural development plays a particularly important role in restructuring the agricultural sector, developing concentrated, large-scale commodity agriculture towards modernity, high added value and sustainability, affirming the role of "support" of the economy, becoming a "measure of the country's sustainability". Digital transformation of agriculture and rural development is an objective requirement and the responsibility, obligation and rights of the entire system, of the industry, enterprises, science and technology and especially farmers; is a method to achieve the goal of developing smart agriculture, modern rural areas, increasing the proportion of digital agriculture in the production, processing, market and economic chains. According to Decision 749/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister on approving the "National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with a vision to 2030", agriculture is identified as one of eight priority areas for digital transformation. However, up to now there has been no separate document on digital transformation in agriculture and rural areas.

Regarding the policy of agricultural land accumulation and concentration: Currently, the 2013 Land Law has not recognized land use rights as property rights, and has not included the value of land use rights in the list of assets. Therefore, the mechanism for protecting the rights of land users is very fragile, and the land recovery mechanism will be easily exploited, leading to corruption and negativity. In addition, the Land Law has not fully updated the methods of agricultural land concentration and accumulation in the current context.

Regarding credit policies serving the development of high-tech agriculture, which have been amended and supplemented many times, people and businesses still have difficulty accessing them. The main reason is that lending procedures are not close to reality and are still complicated. The approach to credit policies does not take into account the real needs of

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Customers, loan limits are not suitable for many subjects, loan interest rates are still high, procedures for accessing credit capital are still complicated when requiring many types of certificates, registrations, mortgaged assets or many other conditions, making farmers and businesses discouraged. The lack of specific regulations and instructions on property valuation on land is the biggest "barrier" in accessing credit capital for businesses and farmers. In addition, many banks are not very interested in lending capital to develop high-tech agricultural production. Because, the confirmation of collateral assets formed from loan capital is currently inadequate. To be able to borrow unsecured loans, customers themselves must fully perform the statistical preparation, publicly and transparently report financial statements according to regulations (with audit), and maintain credibility in the loan relationship with the bank.

3.3.3. The contradiction between the requirement to develop synchronous and modern rural socio-economic infrastructure to promote the role of farmers in the context of the fourth industrial revolution and the current limitations and weaknesses in rural socio-economic infrastructure in the Red River Delta

Rural socio-economic infrastructure includes basic works serving the socio-economic development process in rural areas, including: transportation, irrigation, electricity, schools, cultural facilities, rural commercial infrastructure, information and communication, and residential housing. Rural socio-economic infrastructure plays a particularly important role, closely related to the process of rural socio-economic growth and development. The development of rural infrastructure directly promotes and paves the way for all socio-economic activities in rural areas. The level, scale, quality, and technical progress of rural infrastructure are among the important criteria for assessing the development level of rural society. Socio-economic infrastructure plays an important role in the development of high-tech agriculture in the region, creating a favorable environment and material conditions for promoting the role of farmers in the Red River Delta in the context of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution. This is also a material basis to attract investment capital from high-tech agricultural enterprises.

In the context of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, the development of high-tech agriculture and smart agriculture requires a corresponding smart rural socio-economic infrastructure. The application of modern technological achievements of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution contributes to the construction of a civilized and modern rural socio-economic infrastructure including smart schools, smart transportation, smart hospitals, smart houses, smart farms, etc. To develop high-tech agriculture and build rural areas

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