"Learn how South Korea has fostered the data-driven agriculture ecosystem; what are the key innovation enablers and how they interact"

The public institutions in South Korea play a major role in developing and disseminating new AgTech, the importance of their data platform and analytics is growing. In line with the Digital Green New Deal plan (also known as the Korean New Deal), the South Korean government is now focusing on constructing an efficient data platform. In the agricultural sector, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA)’s public data portal is one of their most successful institutional innovation cases. It has combines different information platforms to increase the accessibility of open data for its stakeholders. It now reveals 1,051 open datasets regarding crop cultivation, agricultural technology, livestock management, pest information, and agri-product distribution comprehensively collected from its 18 affiliated agencies. Two MAFRA’s public agencies, the Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality and Evaluation (KAPE) and the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) participating in the public data portal will showcase how they collect and utilize agricultural data to foster Livestock Products Traceability System and agriculture production forecasting. This will be an opportunity to see how South Korea has fostered the data-driven agriculture ecosystem; what are the key innovation enablers and how they interact? And how the experience of Korea can be transferred to other countries?

More about KAPE and KREI

Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality and Evaluation (KAPE) is well known for its animal-product traceability system. It has launched a wide variety of animal-products history tracking services from 2009 to increase food safety for consumers, effectively deal with tangible threats in the food value chain, and predict the supply and demand. Such a wide-range food tracking system is possible because KAPE has been cooperating with farms, local governments, and other public agencies to collect animal-product data from all stages of the food value chain. KAPE has kicked off new initiatives to expand its data collection and utilization by providing distribution information via its online platform,  e-Kapepia, which provides real-time price and supply/demand statistics for farmers, distributors and retailers.

Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) is an agricultural think tank in South Korea that works as an important innovation hub for developing the rural economy and agricultural industry. KREI is operating an agricultural observation center, the Agricultural Outlook, which collects agri-product (crop) data from farm sites to build an agricultural forecast. The mid/long-term agricultural forecast helps farm-decision making for farmers, distributors, and policymakers. It also contributes to supply/demand predictability and identifying the future food crisis. Agricultural predictability is important since it can help to shape the future blueprint of the agricultural industry.