Research Reports
Case Study on the New Technology and Farming for Agricultural Vision
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AuthorKim, Jeongho
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Publication Date2008.06.01
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Original
The agriculture of Korea is facing a great ordeal. While the financial balance is getting pressured from the surge in international prices of crops and petroleum, the progress of DDA agreement is rising as a new threat to Korean agriculture along with the Korea-US FTA signed last year. Just like the Korean proverb “look far whenever there is difficulty,” it is time to garner wisdom toward a mid- and long-term vision for agriculture.
This study is comprised of largely five parts: first, the means of escaping the difficulties of Korean agriculture and new directions for technological innovation; second, the development of elevated-bench hydroponic cultivation of strawberries; third, direct seeding technology; fourth, TMR feed using improved barley; and lastly, the Korean cattle traceability system using RFID.
According to the study, the means of escaping the difficulties of Korean agriculture are as follows: the promotion of the linkage between agriculture and food industry; development of new technologies by which IT, BT, NT can be applied in agriculture; development of marketing and management techniques which are urgently needed at farming sites; and the development of new technologies that can cope with the demand for eco-friendly technology.
The study has found that the elevated-bench hydroponic system for strawberry cultivation can contribute greatly to the increase of farm household income since it is less labor intensive and favorable to expand the cultivation scale with higher output. It points out that it is difficult to sustain the strawberry cultivation by aged farmers because it is highly labor-intensive to manage and harvest.
The study also found that the direct seeding culture of rice with herbicide application has many benefits since rice transplanting has many limitations due to lack of labor. The direct seeding has the possibility of expanding the cultivation scale through reduced labor and the possibility of increasing price and quality through increased productivity.
The development of TMR feed using barley emerged in view of the fact that the increase in the international market prices of grains is directly related to the deterioration of farm management. The study suggested to reduce feed costs by adopting a barley TMR system.
Finally, the study points out that since imported beef can illegally be distributed as Korean beef, thus raising public health risks, the cattle traceability system utilizing RFID technology is developed to efficiently manage tracked information of Korean cattle. The study finds that the traceability system can improve the business performance of livestock farms and stabilize the consumption of Korean beef as it facilitates the effective gathering of cattle tracking information combined with unique identification numbers at each beef production process.
Researcher: Jeong-Ho Kim, Moon-Ho Park, Yean-Jung Kim
E-mail Address: jhkim@krei.re.kr
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