Using the automatic Ilyra system, farmers don’t have to go to the garden but can still control the farming experience via smart phone or computer. All the watering, fertilizing, spraying, or harvesting processes are programmed. This allows anyone even those who don’t have any farming technique to cultivate. Doctor Duong Trong Hai said that in addition to automation, the system also enables origin tracing: “The system is useful for farmers and big agricultural producers because it enables growers to make their cultivation process transparent. The public or agencies can collect accurate information about products from the system.”

The system helps urban people to grow vegetables for their daily meals and also big gardeners to pursue large-scale production. Doctor Ngo Thi Lam Giang, Deputy Director of the Agriculture Biology Institute of Nguyen Tat Thanh University said automatic production on a large scale helps save labor and costs and ensure strict technical factors which traditional cultivating methods cannot meet. Circled production and transparent information will help growers earn customers’ trust. Ms Giang said: “We found the system feasible and a breakthrough, technologically. The system connects all factors in a chain enabling us to manage from the cultivation process to consumption.”

The research group is finalizing the system which has proved successful in growing 7 vegetable species. They plan to program the cultivation process on more plants and herbs and establish an electronic business system to connect growers with consumers.