[Data Changes Farms] Gunsan Myeongwol Farm Achieves 84% Hanwoo 1++ Rate with Self-Mixed Fermented Feed

From July 2025 to June this year, among the 19 steers shipped by Myeongwol Farm(CEO Shin Dong-gyu·Gunsan, Jeonbuk), 16 received the 1++ grade. The 1++ rate was 84.2%. The average carcass weight of the 19 head was 540kg, the loin-eye area was 120㎠, and the marbling score was 8.2. As many as 10 head received the so-called Number Nine(marbling score 9·Number Nine). Before the farm introduced self-mixing and ICT equipment, from October 2019 to April 2020 it shipped 5 steers, of which only 1 received the 1++ grade, and the marbling score was only 5.4. According to the Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality Evaluation, the 2025 national average for steers is a carcass weight of 478.1kg, a loin-eye area of 100.3㎠, and a marbling score of 6.3. Myeongwol Farm’s 19 head exceeded the national average in all three indicators. However, the average age at shipment is similar to the national average(31.7 months).

The person who changed the farm in this way is CEO Shin Dong-gyu(born in 1984), who left life in Seoul in 2019 and returned to his hometown of Gunsan. The Hanwoo herd that began with 30 head grew to 300 in 7 years. He mixes feed himself, detects estrus through detector alarms, and selects breeding cows based on offspring performance. Shin said, “If you compare it to the college entrance exam, to get into medical school you cannot just be good at Korean·English·and math; you have to be good at everything” and added, “No matter how good the cattle are, it will not work if the feed does not support them, and you have to pay attention to floor management, feed management, and even cattle stress”. 

Taking parental leave and returning to hometown Gunsan

Shin’s father had served as a cooperative president and raised 30 Hanwoo cattle while farming rice. After his father passed away in 2017, his mother had to run the farm alone. Shin graduated from Hanyang University’s College of Engineering, worked as an engineer under an alternative military service program, and then worked at Korail(Korea Railroad Corporation) Goyang Rolling Stock Depot before taking parental leave after his son was born in 2019 and coming down to Gunsan.
His parents did not make him do farm work when he was young. They wanted him to study and go to Seoul. Shin said, “I had planned to run a business someday” and “while looking for an item, I thought I should compete with Hanwoo”. In other words, he approached it from the beginning not as farming but as a business. Unlike his wife, who expected him to return to Seoul soon, he has remained in Gunsan to this day.
Before coming down, he first obtained livestock artificial inseminator and drone licenses. Once he arrived, he found that the cattle needed work starting from the basics. Pedigree registration had not been properly done, and semen was not being managed either. 

Starting self-mixing with feed, the largest share of production costs

Shin watched YouTube videos of farms that raised Hanwoo well and conducted a SWOT analysis(a management analysis method that establishes strategy by dividing internal strengths·weaknesses, and external opportunities·threats into 4 categories). The answer was feed. He said, “The largest share of production costs is feed cost” and “I thought there would be no future if I could not control feed”.

In 2020, he built one barn, brought in a mixer, and began self-mixing. He visited leading farms to learn, and whenever results did not come, he shared data with a senior farm in Seocheon, South Chungcheong Province, that had started self-mixing around the same time, building know-how.

Feed verification was done through comparative experiments. He divided calves into three groups. There were mid-level 7-to-8-month-old calves bought at a cattle market, mid-level 3-month-old calves brought in from neighborhood farms, and calves from his own farm. All were fed the same feed. Judging that proper management during the growing period would keep feed intake from falling before and after fattening and allow them to grow well, he deliberately brought some in young and raised them his way. The first results were over 75% 1++. Shin said, “Feed can produce 1++, but without genetic improvement, high unit prices do not come”. That became the reason he began managing feed and improvement together.

Fermented TMF with 15%·barley bran and 5% rice bran, aged 2 weeks in summer·3 weeks in winter

The characteristic of Myeongwol Farm’s fermented total mixed fiber feed(TMF) is barley byproducts. Because Gunsan is a major barley-producing area, more barley bran is included than in other regions. Since he also farms rice himself, he uses rice bran as well. The mixing ratio is about 15% barley bran and 5% rice bran. The remaining ingredients, such as corn-based feed and rice straw, are similar to other regions. Shin said, “Barley bran comes out only in June and is difficult to store, so it is not easy for other farms to use as much as 15%” and “Rice bran has a lot of fat, so you cannot put in too much”.

That is why the core of TMF is storage. Materials that come out in one season are wrapped in plastic and stacked. All the plastic-wrapping work requires human hands. Auxiliary facilities such as raw-material storage warehouses and fermentation spaces are also needed. Shin said, “It is too much for farms with small herd sizes to attempt” and “Farms with at least 100 fattening cattle that can receive raw materials by 5-ton truck should do it”.

He set the feeding standard high. Early fattening feed is about 80% total digestible nutrients(TDN) and 17% crude protein(CP), while the later stage is around 85% TDN, 15% CP. Shin described this as “extremely high specification”. His explanation is that feeding high-spec feed as it is can upset cattle, so fermentation protects them.

Shin said, “When microbial strains are added for fermentation, the microbes break down starches that cattle cannot digest and help digestion” and “Since enzymes are produced, you can think of it as a natural digestive aid”. He explains that alcohol fermentation also improves palatability. However, he drew the line, saying, “Fermentation does not greatly raise the nutritional components” and “It is a device for storage and for protecting the cattle”.

The mixer was later replaced with a steam mixer. Mixing is done four times a week by two people. They make 20 tons over two days, wrap it in plastic, and ferment it for about 2 weeks in summer and 3 weeks in winter. The finished feed is scooped into a vehicle feeder and fed mechanically, so it requires almost no labor. 

Calving interval shortened by 48.7 days after introducing estrus detectors

In 2021, with government support, he brought in ICT equipment such as estrus detectors. Because he also farms rice, there were many times when he was away from the barn. Shin said, “I do paddy farming and have a lot of outside work, so I cannot always be in the barn; smart livestock farming was what could make up for that”.

The most effective device was the estrus detector. When estrus is detected, an alarm comes through a mobile phone app. He said, “To catch estrus, you always have to observe well, but I can check it through the app even when I am not in the barn” and “It is filling in my weak points well”. An alarm does not immediately lead to insemination. When an alarm comes, he first checks the cow with his eyes to see whether the estrus cycle is right, and if it is, he calls an artificial inseminator. The inseminator judges again. In this way, about four rounds of cross-checking are carried out. His older sister and mother handle calf and insemination management.

Looking at breeding performance before and after ICT introduction provided by the farm, the calving interval fell from 429.4 days to 380.7 days, a reduction of 48.7 days. The open days after calving until pregnancy again shortened from 138.8 days to 96.3 days, by 42.5 days, and the conception rate rose from 74.2% to 92%, up 17.8 percentage points.

Culling maternal lines based on offspring performance, selecting sires from within the top 10 in breeding value

Along with feed, he also put effort into genetic improvement. While building the barn, he brought in 30 cows from a breeding farm with well-improved genetics for 200 million won. The criterion for culling breeding cows is offspring performance. If a shipped animal receives grade 1 or below, all 3 generations on that animal’s female line are excluded from breeding and switched to cow fattening.

For semen, he focuses on marbling score and loin-eye area, using only those within the top 10. He avoids semen that makes carcasses excessively large. Shin said, “It is a problem when calves are born, and when they grow up they have to go into long-term fattening, which reduces efficiency”. He does not try to save on semen costs. He said, “While raising one animal for more than 2 and a half years, a lot of fixed costs go in” and “If you try to save on semen, there can be a difference of 2 million to 3 million won per head, so those who have earned it do not begrudge expensive semen costs”.

A steer obtained by inseminating those purchased cows with KPN1416 semen, which has excellent genetic ability in areas such as the loin, received a 1++A grade, marbling score 9, and loin-eye area of 148㎠ in grade evaluation in November 2025. This animal placed 10th(Korean Hanwoo Association President’s Award) in the main competition of the 28th National Hanwoo Performance Evaluation Contest held in 2025. The successful bid unit price was 56,149 won per kg, and the auction price was 30.03 million won. According to the Korea Animal Improvement Association, the average slaughter performance of cattle entered in the contest was a marbling score of 7.8, and a loin-eye area of 118.6㎠.

1++ rate from 72.5% to 84.2%, loin-eye area 120㎠

Grade-evaluation data by period show a clear change. Before the introduction of self-mixing and ICT, the 5 head shipped from October 2019 to April 2020 included 1 head graded 1++, with an average marbling score of 5.4 and loin-eye area of 91.6㎠. The 69 head shipped from December 2023 to June 2025 rose to 72.5% 1++, marbling score 7.5, and loin-eye area 109.1㎠, and the 19 head after July 2025 recorded 84.2%, 8.2, and 120㎠. Comparing the two most recent periods, backfat thickness decreased from 16.0㎜ to 12.2㎜, and the average age at shipment moved earlier from around 33 months to around 31 months. Shin found the basis of this change in accumulated data. He said, “Because business is not predictable, you always need means to increase predictability, and that was smart livestock farming” and “I did not really feel it in the first year, but by feeding back again based on data accumulated over 2 or 3 years and setting a new direction, it became a foothold for creating better results”. 

Lowering the share of feed costs from 60% to 45%

After self-mixing, the share of feed costs in production costs fell from 60% to about 45% . Shin said, “Mixing is done to receive good grades, not solely to reduce feed costs” and “Still, because it can raise the received price, I do it even though it is hard”. He added that to surpass the break-even point with self-mixing, a farm needs at least 100 steers.

Shin said, “Even when cattle prices were bad, I did not earn a lot, but I did not take a loss” and “It was possible because I made the feed myself”. The 69 head shipped from December 2023 to June 2025 had an average auction price of 10.13 million won. The 19 head shipped after July 2025 averaged 13.61 million won. Improved performance had an effect, but fluctuations in Hanwoo market prices between the two periods also influenced the figures.

Roughage is handled through rice farming. The rice-farming area is 160,000 pyeong(about 529,000㎡), doubled from his father’s time. It is double cropping, planting rice in summer and Italian ryegrass and barley in winter. It is not easy to do roughage and rice farming together, but because he produces rice straw himself, the burden was small even when rice-straw prices rose. The 4 employees also share rice-farming work.

Pursuing a 2,000-ton-per-month feed plant…“Our farm is an experimental farm for feed”

The picture Shin had drawn from the time he started self-mixing was a feed business. In 2025, he established a corporation and applied for a feed-manufacturing facility public project worth 2 billion won, and is waiting for the result. This year, he plans to build a feed plant with a monthly capacity of 2,000 tons. He has limited the supply range to the local region. Shin said, “Feed can go wrong in an instant, and if you expand excessively, quality control may fail” and “I set it at 2,000 tons as a scale at which cooperative members can earn money and I can earn money too”.

The farm’s role will also change. Shin said, “Our farm is an experimental farm for feed” and “We plan to first feed cattle for about 6 months with feeds that have different mixing ratios, and if they are good, sell them”.

The goal is shipment at 28 months of age with a carcass weight of 530kg, loin-eye area of 120㎠, and 1++ of at least 80% . The reason he set feed specifications high is also to bring forward the shipping age. According to Shin, 8 head shipped at 28 months of age ahead of this year’s Chuseok holiday included 7 head graded 1++ and 1 head graded 1+, receiving more than 100 million won. Another 8 head once shipped at 24–25 months of age included 3 head graded 1++, 3 head graded 1+, and 1 head each graded 1 and 2. Shin stated his plan, “They must be raised for at least 28–30 months, but we need to bring it forward to shipment at an average of 28 months”.

He also continues to receive training. Through a professional consulting company, he receives training in feeding management·genetic improvement·and feed, and is introduced to experts nationwide for areas where he is lacking. Shin said, “Trends keep changing, so you have to keep learning” and “There are many farms that do well, so to get ahead of them you have to read books and visit farms that do well”. He believes that equipment must go together with consulting in order to play its proper role. Shin said, “It is most important to introduce a system that fits the farm based on scientific data” and “Consulting must continue so that the introduced equipment can be used more in veterinary medicine, feeding management, genetic improvement, and management aspects”.

Since returning to farming in 2019, he says, “I have never regretted it because I am doing my own business”. His next goal lies outside the farm. It is operating a feed plant that supplies local farms with mixing ratios verified on his own farm, and shipping at 28 months of age.