Daedong-Korea Central Association of Fields Co-op agree to cooperate on distributing and supplying precision agricultural services and smart agricultural machinery
Daedong-Korea Central Association of Fields Co-op agree to cooperate on distributing and supplying precision agricultural services and smart agricultural machinery
-. Company demonstrates its precision agricultural services for rice, soybean, and onion harvesting at a 33ha field owned by the Korea Central Association of Fields Co-op to prove its potential for commercial applications
-. Daedong will offer training programs for farms in order to demonstrate that smart and autonomous agricultural machinery can improve productivity
-. Last year, Daedong established a full lineup of autonomous agricultural machinery and launched precision farming services... Company hopes to offer them in earnest to farming households in Korea soon
On January 31, Daedong Group's future agtech platform company Daedong (Co-CEO: Kim Jun-sik and Won Yu-hyun) announced that it signed a new business agreement with the Korea Central Association of Fields Co-op (Chairperson: Jang Soo-yong, hereinafter referred to as the “KCAF Co-op”) for “cooperation in distributing and supplying precision agricultural services and smart agricultural machinery.”
The agreement was signed to grow and develop the national food industry by diversifying and advancing precision agriculture and smart agriculture, which Daedong is looking to achieve with crops going forward. Meanwhile, the KCAF Co-op, established in 2009 as part of a national project to establish Fields Co-ops across the country, is an organization of agricultural cooperatives with at least 25 people cultivating more than 50ha of farmland. Currently, there are 600 co-ops nationwide and together, they are involved in all or part of the crop cultivation process on a total of 107,000ha (approximately 323 million pyeong) of arable land in Korea.
Under the provisions of the agreement, Daedong is expected to select three co-ops harvesting rice, soybeans, or other field crops (garlic, onions, etc.) across an area of at least 33ha (approximately 100,000 pyeong) and offer solutions that cover the entire growth and harvest cycle of each crop. Moreover, to reduce labor input while improving productivity with smart agricultural machinery, the company will also lease out equipment such as autonomous driving tractors, combines, and rice transplanters, and the training farmers need to properly use the equipment they borrow. Daedong plans to gradually expand the number of farms for precision agriculture demonstrations, incorporate more land into its service chain and increase the number of crop types eligible for KCAF Co-op members to harvest using smart solutions.
Meanwhile, as part of its effort to explore future business opportunities, Daedong has been testing and demonstrating its precision farming solutions to maximize harvest with the smallest amount of resources over the past three years (2021-2023). The company managed to reduce its use of fertilizers by 6%, yet increase rice yield by 18% compared to the conventional fertilizer spraying method. The total farmland used for testing now stands at roughly 76ha. Furthermore, last year, Daedong became the first agricultural machinery company in Korea to launch tractors, combines, and rice transplanters capable of autonomous operations corresponding to level-3 autonomous driving of agricultural machinery, and introduced the “Rice Paddy Precision Farming Service.”