The Agricultural Outlook Information Center at the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) held an experts’ conference on July 30 to examine the technical and economic feasibility of using satellite imagery for forecasting agricultural production in Korea. 

During the opening ceremony, Kim Jeong-Ho, vice president of KREI, delivered opening remarks. He said KREI’s forecasting operations, which began in 1996 with five agricultural items, have grown to cover 28 agricultural items. Kim said that KREI’s agricultural production forecasting has greatly contributed to stabilizing the market supply and demand of agricultural products and their prices. Against such a backdrop, Kim called on the conference participants to actively engage in in-depth discussions and examine the feasibility of using satellite imagery for raising the speed of information gathering and the accuracy of data.  

Meanwhile, Kwon Oh-Bok, senior fellow at KREI, presented a paper entitled “The Feasibility and Strategy of Utilizing Satellite Data for Agricultural Forecasting” and introduced overseas experience of utilizing satellite imagery. “In countries like the US, Canada, and EU,” he said, “satellite information is utilized for a wide range of purposes. These include not only compiling agricultural statistics but also forecasting agricultural outlook and adopting an early warning system against diseases and harmful insects.” However, he added, the use of satellite information in Korea’s primary industries is low. According to him, satellite information is used only to a limited extent by a small number of institutions like the Korea Forest Service, the Fisheries Outlook Center of the Korea Maritime Institute, and the Rural Development Administration.

Kwon said that if satellite information is used in forecasting the agricultural production, the accuracy of forecast data becomes more precise with the beneficial effect of reducing the cost by over 300 million won annually. Accordingly, he said, the Agricultural Outlook Information Center plans to utilize satellite information in earnest to innovate its forecasting operations. To this end, he added, a cooperative system among related institutions needs to be built for the securement of satellite images and the accumulation of technologies needed to read satellite images.