Agricultural model applying high technology in Sapa.

Recently, the Steering Committee for innovation and development of collective economy and cooperatives in Lao Cai province has assigned relevant departments and branches to advise the Provincial People's Committee on the plan to implement digital transformation for cooperatives. Accordingly, they have been interested in the management of cooperatives, putting agricultural products of Lao Cai province on the E-Commerce Exchange Trading.

By 2021, Lao Cai province will have 435 cooperatives with over 6,000 cooperative members. Agricultural cooperatives account for nearly 50%. The average revenue of the cooperative in 2021 will reach VND 773 million/year; the average profit of the cooperative in 2021 will reach VND 93 million/year. The number of employees working in the cooperative area is over 7,800 people. The per capita income of workers in the cooperative in 2021 will reach 38 million VND. It can be said that the cooperative sector has significantly contributed to production development, economic restructuring, job creation, hunger eradication, poverty reduction and new rural construction of Lao Cai province.

However, in recent years, the application of information technology in production and business activities of cooperatives is still limited. Firstly, in terms of capacity and thinking, awareness of cooperatives towards digital transformation, currently in the province there are a number of cooperatives applying high technology in production and business activities. But these cooperatives only focus on applying irrigation technology, net house system, stamping traceability. The application of digital transformation in processing, cooperative management, consumption and product promotion has not been paid attention properly. Secondly, in terms of human resources, most of the staff and members of the cooperative have not been trained in Information Technology, so they face difficulties in accessing and implementing the digital transformation process. The capacity to exploit information, strategic orientation, develop digital transformation plans, access the digital market, work in the cyber environment or the level of readiness to apply and receive scientific and technical innovations is very limited. Thirdly, in terms of technology and digital infrastructure, the common ground shows that the information technology infrastructure of cooperatives, especially agricultural cooperatives, is still outdated, many agricultural cooperatives still do not have computers and equipment to connect to the internet and still unfamiliar with software and utilities such as accounting software, production management, sales management software, etc. Fourthly, investment capital for digital transformation is still limited. In general, the cooperatives in the province are small in scale, mainly agricultural cooperatives for production and business in the traditional way, so they still have limited capital sources and the ability to mobilize capital is not high, usually only enough for the production process, business and service process of the cooperative. Therefore, financial capacity has not met the requirements of digital transformation.

In the coming period, Lao Cai sets the goals "Step by step towards digital transformation, digital government, digital economy and digital society, creating favorable conditions for people and businesses to easily and safely access digital resources. By 2025, basically complete digital transformation in agencies of the Party, State, Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations to ensure unity, interconnection and synchronization". Therefore, converting the number of cooperatives in the near future is inevitable.

For successful digital transformation, it is necessary to invest resources and implement determination from all sectors of society, especially to immediately overcome current limitations. Lao Cai focuses on specific solutions: Promoting communication and changing awareness about the digital transformation process in cooperative development for the contingent of state management staff in economic cooperation at all levels; key officials and members of the cooperative; organizing seminars and conferences on digital transformation; organizing study tours, exchanging experiences, introducing cooperative models inside and outside the province successfully implementing digital transformation; regularly informing, communicating, propagating and promoting activities and contents of enterprise digital transformation on the mass media and through the Internet in order to raise awareness of the business community and cooperatives; supporting digital transformation training for production and business establishments, cooperatives; propagating and mobilizing businesses and cooperatives to register and use digital platforms for digital transformation; developing communication documents and publications on digital transformation of enterprises and cooperatives; developing digital infrastructure, broadband fiber optic infrastructure, broadband fiber optic Internet services to businesses and cooperatives to serve the deployment of digital applications; connecting and choosing platforms to support businesses in digital transformation; promoting the transformation of arguments, the application of digital technology into the entire management, production and business processes, and production linkages; deploying point model and supporting policy of point model for businesses and cooperatives for digital transformation./.