[Special Stock] GreenPlus, Following Lee Jae-myung, Yoon Seok-yeol Also Promotes Smart Farm... Grain Prices Soar Due to Climate Change

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] GreenPlus, the No.1 domestic company in greenhouses and smart farms, is showing strong performance. Amid a favorable business environment based on government-level smart farm industry promotion policies, it appears that Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party, mentioning support for smart farms has influenced the stock price.

At 9:52 a.m. on the 2nd, GreenPlus was trading at 20,900 KRW, up 15.15% from the previous day.

Yoon Seok-yeol, the People Power Party presidential candidate, visited a youth policy seminar as his first step after joining the party the day before and stated, "The younger generation must actively participate in national policy development."

Candidate Yoon said, "Agriculture should be approached as an industry, and smart farms should be approached through a corporate mechanism," adding, "If funding support, investment, education, and technology sharing are all approached as businesses, an ecosystem can be formed and naturally develop." He further pointed out, "However, in our country, agriculture is fundamentally trapped in outdated thinking such as strategic agricultural product stockpiling and the principle of 'gyeongja-yujeon' (cultivating the land by oneself), and the laws are structured in such a way, hindering agricultural development."

Earlier, Lee Jae-myung, Governor of Gyeonggi Province, visited a smart farm company, which is gaining attention as future agriculture in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, in March to confirm its growth potential.

At that time, after touring the plant factory facilities, Governor Lee said, "Seeing it with my own eyes, I have come to believe that this industry can develop beyond merely replacing traditional agriculture into a new future industry," adding, "It seems that biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and equipment industries can converge. From Gyeonggi Province's perspective, it would be good if the future smart farm industry can take root."

Kim Jae-yoon, a researcher at KTB Investment & Securities, explained, "In addition to the government-led Smart Farm Valley, local governments' smart farm development projects are also likely to receive orders in the second half of the year," adding, "Smart farm development projects in Jecheon, Goseong, and Ulju regions are gaining momentum, so orders are expected from those areas."

According to data released by the market research firm Variant Market Research in 2018, the global smart farm market is expected to grow rapidly at an annual rate of 14.1%, from approximately 7 billion USD in 2016 to 20 billion USD in 2024. The Asia-Pacific region is projected to grow at a rate of 15.6%, exceeding the average.

Interest in smart farms is also increasing due to climate change, which is reaching near-disastrous levels worldwide. The United States, the world's largest food exporter, saw its spring wheat harvest this year drop by 41% compared to the same period last year, marking the lowest level in 33 years. There are concerns that wheat supply this year will decrease at the largest rate in eight years. Due to abnormal weather such as heatwaves and droughts continuing since last year, international wheat prices traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange rose by about 40% compared to the previous year last month. Due to abnormal weather worldwide, including droughts in South America and cold waves in Australia, corn prices have more than doubled compared to last year, and soybeans have risen by 70%. In fact, South Korea's food self-sufficiency rate was 45.8% as of 2019, showing an overall downward trend. It has dropped by 10.4 percentage points compared to 56.2% in 2009, ten years ago.