The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Minister Song Mi-ryung) held the awards ceremony for the 11th Agriculture and Rural Public Data + AI Startup Competition at 10 a.m. on August 13 in the main auditorium of the Korea Racing Authority, presenting awards to a total of 18 winning entries. As an effort to solve problems in agriculture and rural communities by combining agri-food public data with artificial intelligence (AI), this year’s competition drew 290 submissions, a 56.8% increase from 185 last year.
 [코리안투데이] 농식품 공공데이터와 인공지능 AI 으로 농업 농촌의 현안을 해결한다 © 장형임 기자 |
The competition was organized to discover and support innovative ideas, products and services that utilize agri-food public data and AI, thereby accelerating the use of public data and innovation in the agri-food industry. Eight related organizations took part in running the competition, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Rural Development Administration, along with the Korea Rural Community Corporation, the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation, the Korea Racing Authority, the Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality Evaluation, the Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry, the Korea Agency of Education, Promotion and Information Service in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Korea Agricultural Policy Insurance and Finance Service, and the Korea Agriculture Technology Promotion Agency.
Applications were accepted from April 1 to June 30, and evaluators noted that the 290 submissions represented not only a large quantitative increase but also many entries of high quality. After a first-round document screening and a second-round presentation evaluation, a total of 18 entries were selected as winners — nine in the Product and Service Development category and nine in the Idea Planning category — with total prize money of 56 million won.
 [코리안투데이] 농식품 공공데이터와 인공지능 AI 으로 농업 농촌의 현안을 해결한다 © 장형임 기자 |
This year’s winning entries stood out for combining AI technology with a wide range of data provided by resources such as Farm Map and the Agri-Food Public Data Portal. Services and ideas capable of solving on-the-ground problems in agriculture and rural communities — including preventing livestock epidemics, eco-friendly solar energy, pest control, agricultural product distribution and smart livestock farming — and of accelerating the digitalization of the agri-food industry received high marks.
The grand prize in the Product and Service Development category (Minister’s Award, 7 million won) went to team zyra for its 「AI-based Preemptive Livestock Epidemic Prevention Navigation」. The service establishes new domestic analysis standards based on samples of domestic mutant genes to diagnose porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome quickly and accurately, and it supports preemptive prevention by fusing disease outbreak records, farm locations and weather to diagnose and predict the spread across farms nationwide in real time.
 [코리안투데이] 농식품 공공데이터와 인공지능 AI 으로 농업 농촌의 현안을 해결한다 © 장형임 기자 |
The grand prize in the Idea Planning category (Minister’s Award, 3.5 million won) was won by team Hanvet AI for its 「AI Monitoring and Early Warning System for Coughing in Pig Pens」. By learning pigs’ coughing sounds, the system verifies the direction in which coughing spreads within a pig house and the ventilation direction, gauges whether diseases have broken out within a 30 km radius to measure risk, and — once a threshold is exceeded — automatically sends the actual coughing sound and an alert to the responsible veterinarian. It was praised for its potential use in helping livestock farms detect and respond to animal diseases early.
In the same category, the grand prize in the Farm Map data utilization field (Minister’s Award, 3.5 million won) went to team Cheolbuji for 「All-Farm」. A digital-twin farming simulator that draws on Farm Map-based crop cultivation information, weather data and wholesale and retail agricultural price information, it helps returning farmers and experienced farmers virtually experience and analyze various farming conditions before actual farm management.
 [코리안투데이] 농식품 공공데이터와 인공지능 AI 으로 농업 농촌의 현안을 해결한다 © 장형임 기자 |
The ministry plans to provide winners with prize money along with follow-up support such as customized public data, AI-utilization training, and marketing and investment consulting. In addition, four of the top-ranked entries (two in Product and Service Development and two in Idea Planning) will earn the right to advance to the integrated finals (September–October) of the 14th Whole-of-Government Public Data and AI Startup Competition hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
 [코리안투데이] 농식품 공공데이터와 인공지능 AI 으로 농업 농촌의 현안을 해결한다 © 장형임 기자 |
Lee Si-hye, Director-General for Agricultural Industry Innovation Policy at the ministry, said, ‘High-quality data is the key resource for the agricultural transformation (AX) of agriculture and rural communities,’ adding, ‘We will continue to expand the opening and use of data so that agri-food public data can solve various problems in the field and lead to new services and industries.’ She continued, ‘We will also actively pursue various follow-up support, such as customized consulting and investment-attraction assistance, so that the outstanding ideas discovered in this competition can lead to actual startups and commercialization.’
The competition is meaningful as an attempt to use public data and AI to solve long-standing challenges in the field, such as responding to livestock epidemics, controlling pests and coping with distribution uncertainty. In particular, with the discovery of numerous services that let returning and small-scale farmers review farming conditions in advance without costly trial and error, or help livestock farms detect diseases early and reduce damage, attention is turning to whether the opening of data can widen the path toward farmers’ actual income and safety.
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