The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced on the 27th that it has selected 20 consortia as project targets for this year's 'Data-Based Smart Agriculture Expansion Support Project' to promote smart agriculture solutions utilizing data.
This project aims to distribute smart agriculture solutions that support farmers' agricultural decision-making by analyzing cultivation environment and growth data to predict pest and disease outbreaks, notify optimal supply timing of water and nutrients, and forecast harvest timing and yield.
Through a call for proposals earlier this year, 20 consortia (comprising about 1,300 farms) were selected, consisting of smart agriculture solution producers and farmers who will utilize them, targeting various facility horticultural crops such as strawberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers, as well as open-field and fruit crops like rice, green onions, and grapes, with effects on quality and yield improvement and labor reduction.
The AI-based smart farm management services selected this time, pest outbreak data analysis for pest control decision support, irrigation using soil moisture and leaf temperature data, and various other solutions are expected by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to greatly assist young startup farmers or returnees to rural areas who lack agricultural experience in settling down in rural communities.
In particular, this year, excellent solutions discovered through this project over the past two years will be selected and promoted for large-scale regional expansion. Solutions supporting pest and disease monitoring, precision soil irrigation, and consulting will be distributed to about 600 farms, focusing on strawberries (Nonsan-si), grapes (Gimcheon-si), and green onions (Sinan-gun).
Lee Jeong-sam, Director of the Smart Agriculture Policy Division at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said, "Until now, the ministry has focused on the distribution of first-generation smart farms centered on automation. Now, we plan to concentrate on distributing data-based smart agriculture solutions to expand second-generation smart farms utilizing data."
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