SEOUL, KOREA - The government is seeking the convergence of scientific technology and agriculture to tide over the current crisis facing Korea's agriculture, Choi Hee-jong, deputy minister for food industry policy within the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) said.
Noting that Korea's agriculture is facing difficulties at home and abroad such as the expansion of market deregulation, including FTA, and the stagnation in growth of the domestic agriculture and forestry industry, he said, "To tide over such a crisis, the ministry has mapped out a mid-term and a long-term plan to foster the science technology of agriculture, forestry, and food through the convergence of scientific technology and agriculture."
Korea has so far concluded FTAs with 45 countries and is engaging in negotiations with 25 others. Meanwhile, although the value added of the agriculture and forestry industry expanded from 24.6 trillion won in 2007 to 27 trillion won in 2009 it dipped to 25.3 trillion won in 2011.
In an interview with Korea IT Times, Choi said, "Through the mid and long-term plans, the ministry will increase exports from $5.6 billion in 2012 to $10 billion in 2017 and further to $15 billion in 2022, and push up the value added from 56 trillion won in 2011 to 67 trillion won in 2017 and up again to 77 trillion won in 2022."
He said, "Although the marginal productivity of labor and capital has fallen, scientific technology brings about snowball effects if it is accumulated. Accordingly, we need to actively foster scientific technology so as to not fall behind amongst fierce global competition."
Contribution of R&D to creation of value added
When asked about the contribution of R&D to the creation of value added, Choi said, "R&D investment in agriculture, forestry, and food creates value added agriculture through the creation of new value and improvement of productivity.
"For instance, we can earn just 20,000 won by selling 10kg of rice, but earn 100,000 won if it is processed into precooked dried rice, and 210,000 won after processing it into spirituous liquor," he explained.
Commenting that an era of creative economy, when scientific technology and imaginative power become the origin of competitiveness, will come in the near future, he said, "MAFRA plans to convert the existing labor-centered development model to the technology and capital-oriented innovation-leading development model through persistent expansion of the R&D budget. Related to this, the ministry plans to increase the portion of R&D according to its total budget from the current 5 percent to 10 percent in 2022."
Convergence of agriculture and ICT
"To improve agricultural competitiveness and upgrade agriculture to an advanced industry, it is very important to upgrade agriculture scientifically through the convergence of agriculture and ICT," he said.
"In line with this, the ministry has developed 30 ICT-using business models, including growth environment control of facility horticulture and feeding as well as the management of hog raising, since 2010, attaining a significant reduction in labor cost and improvement of productivity," he noted.
For instance, labor cost decreased by 20 percent and productivity increased by 30 percent for environmentally controlled facility horticulture while labor cost dropped by 20 percent and productivity rose by 20 percent for feeding and the management of hog raising, he said.
To effectively cope with a reduction in farm population and a rise in agricultural management costs in the future, the ministry plans to spread the convergence of agriculture and ICT to the whole process ranging from production to distribution and consumption, he said.
"As a concrete step for convergence of production and ICT, it will push for technology development concerning ICT convergence with precise agricultural systems, intelligence-type sensor-based integrated production controlling technology, as well as building-type plant factories and harvest automation robots," said Choi.
To accelerate the convergence of distribution & consumption with ICT, the ministry plans to push ahead with technology development for construction of RFID using a real time distribution information system for agricultural and livestock products in addition to the cyber market-using model for agricultural and livestock products.
"In particular, MAFRA is moving to enhance the convergence effect of agriculture and ICT through joint technology development with the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning," he stressed.
Convergence of agriculture and bio-engineering
Choi said that the demand for the bio industry to use agricultural life resources, including natural materials, and new generation energy is expected to surge in the near future owing to spread of wellbeing culture and the depletion of fossil fuels.
With a similar move, the U.S. established the national bio economy blueprint to strengthen its bio technology R&D policy. Sweden and Finland have also built up a bio engineering cluster to accelerate a joint study of industrial, academic, and research circles on bio engineering.
"For the creation of a new growth engine through convergence of agriculture and bio-engineering, Korea is also pushing for bio industry technology development projects and the next-generation bio green 21 project. In 2014, MAFRA also plans to push for the multi-ministry dielectric project along with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare," he said.
"In the future, the ministry will place its focus on bio food and drug technology development, including studying the commercialization of natural medicine, the development of agricultural life for new materials replacing compounds such as natural seasoning, and bio energy production technology development using agricultural and forestry goods," said Choi.
Innovation of R&D governance of agriculture, forestry and food
During the 2008~2012 period, the R&D budget for agriculture, forestry and food saw an annual average increase of 8.7 percent from 570.9 billion won in 2008 to 798.3 billion won in 2012.
"To improve the R&D investment efficiency of agriculture, forestry, and food the ministry plans to build a system for collaboration and coexistence through policy coordination, integration, joint planning, and function distribution between central ministries and between central and rural R&D institutions," he said.
"In addition, it will remove R&D redundancy through intergrating and coordinating functions of the Science and Technology Commission of Food, Agriculture & Forestry and activate a cooperative study with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology," he said.
Along with this, he continued to say, it plans to expand the private sector's R&D capacity. This can be done by moving away from government led R&D and bolstering support for technology transfers and commercialization to promote the industrialization of technology.
"To this end, the government plans to allow producers' associations to use the check-off fund, which has previously been used for the purpose of consumption acceleration and control of demand and supply, for R&D projects," Choi said.
Concerning the activation of private research centers in the agricultural, forestry, and food fields, it also intends to ease requirements necessary for the setup of corporate-affiliated research centers in case of agricultural corporation.
"To enhance the technology commercialization rate, the ministry plans to expand the number of support centers for business starters, establish a global start-up academy process, and activate such technology financing systems as the fund of funds for agricultural foods," he added.