Applying high technology to agriculture

Hachi’s smart hydroponic system includes a mobile application using Android and iOS operating systems to control parameters of humidity, temperature and light, activate the led and pump in accordance with each type of tree. It allows users to easily monitor the environmental status of their plants and offer effective solutions such as setting watering time, lighting time and alert levels by smartphones.

Hachi has built more than a dozen farms across the country

The dominant advantage of this product is the use of sensors, which automatically monitor environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity and light through a smartphone application. Users only need to water twice a week and replace the seeds after harvesting old plants.

Once the Hachi app is downloaded, users need only to select the type of tree being grown and activate the automatic mode, providing the plants with all they need. The system is suited to most leafy and spice vegetables.

The whole package costs about VND4-5 million. Currently, Hachi has many orders from retail customers and agents from cities and provinces across the country. In order to improve its product, in 2017 Hachi focused on completing products at a higher level, reducing costs, and cooperating with Japanese sensor companies to develop the product to a farm scale.

Attracting funding and awards

According to Dang Xuan Truong, co-founder of the Hachi Vietnam High Technology Joint Stock Company, Hachi initially faced many difficulties in raising capital as well as completing and commercializing products. “The biggest difficulty is figuring out the optimization and uniqueness of the system compared to other such products in the market. If the team can't find the difference, it will be very difficult to commercialize the products,” he said.

Hydroponic vegetable growing provides consumers with safe products

Hachi chose to participate in startup competitions to attract more capital sources. The amount of VND200 million from the Vietnam Silicon Valley Startup Incubator of the Ministry of Science and Technology was enough for the team to perfect the sample product as well as to seek opportunities to commercialize the products.

After more than five years of implementation, Hachi has built more than a dozen farms across the country in Bac Ninh and Vung Tau provinces, Da Lat City and Phu Quoc District including projects like the TEKY educational hydroponic farm (30sq.m) in Hanoi and the NFT Delco Eco Farm hydroponic farm (1,000sq.m) in Bac Ninh. Hachi supplies tens of tonnes of safe vegetables to the market every month. It has won prestigious awards like the best agricultural project in the Startup Wheel 2016 contest; Potential Start-up prize of Lotte Startup contest 2016; Winner of the Startup Talent Search 2016 contest organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Potential Start-up in the recent Vietnamese Talent Award.

“In the future, the group will continue to research, develop and expand the model to many provinces and cities across the country, hoping to inspire creativity in applying high technology to agricultural production towards a precision and sustainable agriculture,” Truong added.

Facilitating the implementation of Project 844, also known as the “Supporting a national innovation start-

up ecosystem until 2025” project, the Newspaper of Industry and Trade has been actively supporting,

connecting, and contributing to business efficiency and market expansion for such enterprises.

Ngoc Anh & Thu Trang