RDA Selects Top 10 Tasks to Promote 'Digital Agriculture' by Combining Big Data

Park Byung-hong, Administrator of the Rural Development Administration

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kim Hyewon] In the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, efforts are underway to enhance productivity in the agricultural sector by combining digital technology and big data.

The Rural Development Administration announced on the 16th that it has selected 10 key core tasks to implement digital agriculture early in the agricultural field.

The selected tasks include a smart farm optimal environment control system where artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes environmental, growth, and management data of facility horticulture smart farms to autonomously control the optimal environment; development of autonomous agricultural machinery such as self-driving rice transplanters and tractors; agricultural robots that replace labor-intensive tasks such as weed removal, harvesting, transportation, pest control, and livestock manure treatment; and an AI pest and disease diagnosis service that enables unmanned pest control by early diagnosis of pests, diseases, and physiological disorders using deep learning technology based on video data.

To this end, the Rural Development Administration will open a total of 240 public datasets. It plans to strengthen big data analysis capabilities by additionally introducing a supercomputer within this year and will also open access to researchers at universities and other institutions. Various robots to replace agricultural labor are continuously being developed. Technology development and institutional improvements to utilize drones across all agricultural fields are also being promoted. Development of agricultural medium-sized satellite payloads, scheduled for launch in 2025, is underway. Along with the satellite launch, technology for diagnosing domestic and international crop conditions using satellite imagery is also being developed. Additionally, a smart farm simulator is being created that allows cultivation of tomatoes in a 3D virtual space using data from real-world smart farm facilities.

Park Byunghong, Administrator of the Rural Development Administration, emphasized, "We will take the lead in actively introducing 4th Industrial Revolution technologies in the agricultural sector to realize sustainable agriculture and create rural areas where many young farmers can settle. We will also do our best to nurture excellent research personnel in related fields to develop digital agricultural technologies and expand services."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.