A Korean company specializing in big data artificial intelligence (AI) analysis in the agricultural sector will supply their analysis systems to Azerbaijan. Among domestic agricultural startups, Farm Connect is the first to export a big data analysis system to overseas.
Farm Connect (CEO Moohyun Kim) announced on the 22nd that it had recently signed an agreement with the Fruit and Vegetable Cultivation Science Research Institute under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Azerbaijan to support the agricultural analysis system.
Farm Connect signed a contract with Trend Tech, a local partner in Azerbaijan, to supply analysis systems. Trend Tech will supply the analysis system to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Azerbaijan, and the control system will be managed by the Fruit and Vegetable Cultivation Science Research Institute under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
With this agreement, Farm Connect plans to develop and supply the agricultural system requested by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry by the end of this year and export the data collection sensor and collection device in the greenhouse. Through this, Trend Tech expects to increase the production of tomatoes, the main agricultural product of Azerbaijan by 30%.
A trading director of KOTRA Bakı, Geumha Lee, who helped Farm Connect to enter Azerbaijan’s market said “Azerbaijan is an agricultural country in which 4 million of its 10 million population are farmers, accounting for 85% of the country’s territory, and the state is strategically supporting the agricultural sector. It is an attractive place for Korean agricultural start-ups.”
FarmConnect aims to apply the platform to farmhouses with 14,000ha facilities in Azerbaijan. In the first year of export, which would be next year, sales of more than 10 million USD are expected.
The Farm Connect solution has a competitiveness in providing personalized data based on software (SW). According to the region and real-time, a customized text message is sent when the temperature or humidity control is required to inform the appropriate countermeasures for the facility. It is possible to provide customized data including soil temperature, ground humidity, wind direction, wind speed, and weather forecast required for agricultural work, as well as temperature and humidity inside and outside the farm. Unlike HWbased product, subscription fee service is also possible since it is SW based.
Moohyun Kim, CEO of FarmConnect, said, “In Korea, we are aiming to build 160 agricultural technology centers in Cheongyang-gun and Gwangju Agricultural Technology Centers.Not only smart farms across the country but also underdeveloped plastic greenhouse farms can experience convenient data AI farming.”
CEO Kim emphasized, “We will be able to export to countries with a similar agricultural environment to Korea, so we will collect and analyze global agricultural data to become the world’s best agricultural big data analysis company.”
By Staff Reporter Kyungmin Lee (kmlee@etnews.com)