Dawn of the Agricultural AX Era… Ministry of Agriculture and RDA to Invest 57.2 Billion Won to Accelerate the ‘Farm of the Future’

[Korea Agricultural Technology News = Reporter Lee Hyun-woo] To address rural aging and chronic labor shortages, the government has begun full-scale development of advanced unmanned agricultural work technologies that combine artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Rural Development Administration will invest a total budget of 57.262 billion won by 2030 to develop core technologies such as autonomous agricultural machinery, agricultural robots, and drones, while launching a public-private cooperation framework for demonstration and commercialization.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Minister Song Mi-ryung) and the Rural Development Administration (Administrator Lee Seung-don) launched the “Joint Public-Private Agricultural Robot Research Council” (hereinafter, the council) and held its first meeting on June 23 at Lahan Hotel in Jeonju. The council was created so that universities, research institutes, companies, and specialized organizations participating in the ministry’s “AX-based Intelligent Agricultural Work Collaboration Industrialization Technology Development Project” and the RDA’s “Core Technology Development Project for Intelligent Agricultural Work Robots” can use technologies in an integrated manner and cooperate with one another.

The two agencies will invest a total of 57.262 billion won over five years from 2026 to 2030 (39.9 billion won from the ministry and 17.362 billion won from the RDA). For the first year alone, 9.925 billion won has been allocated, with plans to focus on developing core technologies that can replace high-difficulty agricultural tasks in rice paddies, fields, and orchards where dependence on human labor remains high at each work stage.

A total of 18 core research tasks are participating in this R&D project. Major tasks include △development of autonomous tractor swarm collaboration technology for transition to unmanned farms △integrated operation and demonstration of intelligent agricultural work based on an open robot platform covering the full cycle of field farming △development of unmanned collaboration and precision weeding technology based on data solutions △development of an integrated robot platform and intelligent technologies for orchard cultivation management in response to future orchards △worker-cooperative Physical AI-based autonomous crop-harvesting drones.

Going forward, the council will establish standards for agricultural AX (AI transformation) data and promote technology demonstration projects. It plans to strengthen data-sharing systems among participating institutions to accelerate on-site commercialization of technologies.

This large-scale government-led R&D investment is expected to serve as a catalyst for creating an advanced AgTech industry ecosystem. However, behind the dazzling technology, many on-site challenges remain to be solved in order to raise adoption rates among farms.

An urgent task is to build a 'user-friendly interface (UI)' so that elderly farmers, who make up the majority of domestic farm households, can intuitively operate advanced AI robots and drone systems. In addition, government subsidy-linked policies that can reduce the burden of initial equipment purchase costs and the establishment of regional maintenance/service (A/S) infrastructure that can minimize disruptions to farm work in the event of breakdowns must proceed in parallel to achieve tangible increases in farm income and labor substitution effects.

Kim Go-eun, head of the Science and Technology Policy Division at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, emphasized, “Agricultural robots and drones are key technologies that can solve labor shortages in agricultural fields and improve productivity,” adding, “Through this council, we will strengthen cooperation between research institutions and companies and actively support the early spread of outstanding research results to the field.”

Yoon Nam-gyu, head of the Smart Agriculture Team at the Rural Development Administration, also said, “Automation of agricultural work based on AI and robot technologies is a key field that will determine the future competitiveness of agriculture,” adding, “Through joint R&D by the ministry and the administration, we will do our utmost to secure Korean-style agricultural robot technologies suited to our agricultural environment and accelerate agriculture’s digital transformation.”