Bui Ngoc Minh Tam is now able to activate the watering system for his veggie crop even when he is miles away from his farm in Ho Chi Minh City.

All that the farmer, who graduated as an automotive engineer, needs is what he jokingly describes as a “throwaway mobile phone,” and a self-created system to remotely water his 200 hectares of dozens of different kinds of vegetables in Binh Tan District.

A control box is located at the doorway to the farm, which can be turned on and off via a simple message sent from his mobile phone, Tam said.

In a brief demonstration, Tam sent a text reading “ON” to the control box, and ten seconds later, the watering system was activated, with water pouring from above onto the vegetables.

The farmer then sent the “OFF” message to stop the watering, which also took another ten seconds.

Tam can also control the lightning system for his farm through the same texting method, he said before doing another demo, in which the text was sent when he was 200m away from the farm.

Tam said he gave up two degrees in automotive engineering to take on growing vegetables and creating the text-controlled system in 2011, when he was on a business trip in Japan.

“I had to pay VND200,000 [US$9.32] for a dish of vegetables to eat along with my pho [Vietnamese noodle], then I realized there is a huge demand for green produce there,” he recalled.

The idea of working on a farm with an automatic watering system flashed into his mind, and Tam decided to “learn to grow vegetables during the day and work on the system at night.”

“Although this meant I had to work on the farm in harsh weather instead of working in an air-conditioned office, I had no regret over my choice at all,” he said.

Tam said the biggest challenge was figuring out “the signal code that could help connect the control system with the mobile phone.”

Following hundreds of failed tests, Tam was able to introduce his brainchild in mid-2013, a success he said owed much to his friends’ help and support.

“My 200-hectare vegetable crop became greener with the new watering technology,” he said. “I also leased a land plot of nearly 3,000 square meters to grow clean vegetables with the watering system, and the crop has produced good yields.”

Besides watering and lighting, two more functions can be added to the control box, Tam said.

He expects to upgrade the system so that it can be programmed and repaired on computers, and control more devices.

Tam has won the “good production farmer” title from Ho Chi Minh City’s farmer association for his hi-tech farm, according to the association chairman, Tran Truong Son.

His farm has been on display at an agriculture fair in the city, where it intrigued many visitors, Son added.

“Many people are growing vegetables in urban areas but have little time to care for the crops, and they can trust Tam's innovation,” he said.

Vu Anh Tuan, general secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Informatics Association, said watering systems that can be remotely activated via the Internet are not uncommon in Vietnam, but controlling the system via mobile phone text messages is rare.

“This innovation can be used widely thanks to the countrywide coverage of mobile phone networks,” Tuan said.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!