KOTRA Hosts Weekly Event for New Northern CIS Smart Farm Expansion

[Asia Economy Reporter Suyeon Woo] KOTRA announced that, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, it will hold the 'CIS Smart Farm Entry Week' event for two weeks starting from the 12th. This event was organized to support the entry of our small and medium-sized enterprises into the smart farm market in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region.

The event will involve nine trade offices located in the CIS region, including Russia, hosting webinars related to smart farms and arranging video consultations between domestic companies and local buyers.

Agriculture is a sector where our government is focusing cooperation with CIS countries through the New Northern Policy, and there is high demand for collaboration between Korean and CIS companies. Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter last year, is an agricultural powerhouse with vast territory. While grain-based agriculture is well developed in this region, the long and cold winters make it difficult to cultivate vegetables and fruits. Therefore, recently, there has been increasing demand for facility cultivation and smart farms capable of producing vegetables year-round in this region.

Additionally, CIS countries are actively adopting digital agricultural technologies as part of their agricultural digitalization policies, such as crop data analysis and soil sampling inspection systems. Accordingly, KOTRA expects this event to be an important opportunity for our companies to enter the CIS smart farm market.

KOTRA, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, will hold the 'CIS Smart Farm Entry Week' event for two weeks starting from the 12th of this month. The photo shows the greenhouse project site of Fito Group, Russia's largest greenhouse company. Photo by KOTRA

At the 'CIS Smart Farm Webinar' held on the 15th, representatives from Phyto Group, Russia's largest greenhouse company, and the Russian Grain Union will speak, introducing local agricultural policies and smart farm entry opportunities.

The webinar will be broadcast live from 4 p.m. on the 15th on the YouTube channel 'KOTRA Business,' and after the presentations, the speakers will conduct a real-time Q&A session with participants. From that day until the 23rd, KOTRA will hold video consultations involving about 40 Korean companies and 50 local buyers. Approximately 100 consultations are expected to take place.

Lee Jung-hoon, head of KOTRA's CIS Regional Headquarters, emphasized, "Regions such as southern Russia and Ukraine have a high agricultural economic share and have recently been introducing smart farms on a pilot basis to improve productivity," adding, "Now is the right time to enter the CIS smart farm market."