We need to distinguish between areas where capital should come in and areas where it should not.
Need to focus on sales markets and downstream industries rather than focusing on improving productivity As ICT technology develops, the era of the 4th industrial revolution is approaching as technologies are being applied to various industrial fields, from self-driving cars to smart cities. The 'smart' wind is blowing in agriculture as well. Accordingly, we had a meeting to identify the problems for activating smart farms.
In our country, as the rural population ages, the farming population is decreasing, and new interests such as urban agriculture and returning to the farm are emerging. Smart agriculture refers to the introduction of big data, IoT, etc. to make agriculture intelligent, networked, quantifiable, and automated. A smart farm is a farm that introduces ICT to greenhouses, livestock sheds, etc. to remotely measure the growing environment of crops/livestock, and fish in real time and manage it efficiently according to the purpose.
Professor Son Jeong-ik of Seoul National University said, “Korea is distributing ICT mainly to greenhouses such as paprika and strawberries, but compared to the Netherlands, the technology is lacking. Japan is introducing facility horticulture, and China is increasing the area of greenhouses.” He pointed out that it is necessary to establish policies for the participation of mid-sized and large companies in technology development to secure international competitiveness and for a win-win structure between farmers and companies.
Professor Park Jong-seok of Chungnam National University mentioned the standardization of materials. Major equipment for crop production is currently dependent on imports. He continued, “Domestic glass greenhouse competitiveness is lower than that of overseas companies. So, the problem with focusing on film-type interconnected greenhouses is that there is no practical demo to show,” he emphasized, “We cannot show a demo greenhouse built with only domestic materials and technology without the introduction of foreign technology.”
He said, “Two years ago, a large company attempted to enter the market, but gave up due to opposition from producer groups. This is still ongoing. It is also important to find a way to coexist,” and “Big companies should be careful when investing capital. They said they would only export without damaging existing farmers, but in reality, non-exportable products were released into the domestic market,” and mentioned that it is necessary to first create an atmosphere for coexistence and then proceed in stages.
Dr. Lee Ju-ryang of the Science and Technology Policy Institute also explained that farmers and businesses need to think about how to coexist. “It is an undeniable fact that agriculture is going into a competition of facilities and equipment. When capital enters agriculture, we must make it an absolute proposition that ‘it should not enter the production sector. ’” He said, “It can enter the agricultural backbone industry at any time, but large capital is needed for the R&D sector. If capital enters production facilities of an ambiguous size, it will only disrupt the market,” and said that domestic facilities and agricultural machinery have potential in the Southeast Asian and Chinese markets.
Professor Choi Ki-young of Kangwon National University said, “It is true that rural areas are aging. As the population returning to rural areas and farming increases, they are responding favorably to smart farms.” He added, “Smart farms can guarantee a certain level of productivity because they are manualized with data. “The question is not which market to sell to, but rather which market to sell to,” he pointed out.
His view is that smart farms are economies of scale. Even if productivity is increased and production is increased, if there is no place to sell, prices will plummet and a vicious cycle of competition among farmers will occur. He explained that we need to consider not only the domestic market but also markets such as China, Southeast Asia, and Japan. He also pointed out that smart farms can be used for precision agriculture, and that they can only be successful if they flexibly adjust supply and demand with numerical data.
Park Soon-yeon, head of the Agricultural Policy Division at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, explained, “Smart farms can not only achieve precision agriculture, but also increase productivity through agriculture. In the case of strawberries, they are using farming methods that increase productivity while lowering the production rate. Strawberries grown in smart farms have stable quality and taste, so they are sold until June.” He added, “It is important that smart farms use cutting-edge technology, but it is also important to understand that they are knowledge-based agriculture that can control the environment of crops and grow them.”
“If you look at the level of agricultural science and technology, there is a technological gap of about five years compared to advanced countries. Since smart farms cost a lot of money, the government needs to provide support in the form of reducing initial risks in order for them to develop,” he said. “The average age of people trying to start a new business was about 31 years old. We plan to promote a youth education system.”
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced that it will create 4,300 jobs related to smart farms and train more than 600 young smart farm professionals by 2022. It plans to promote the training of young agricultural workers, expansion of related effects to upstream and downstream industries, and the creation of integrated expansion bases.
