The Rural Development Administration (RDA) is piloting ‘unmanned monitoring and trapping devices’ (AI traps) that use artificial intelligence to remotely watch for pest outbreaks across seven cities and counties nationwide. By replacing pest and disease surveys once conducted by human eye with an automated data-collection and analysis system, the technology is expected to significantly ease the pest-control burden on farms.
 [코리안투데이] 농촌진흥청 무인 예찰 포획 장치 AI트랩 구축 현황 살펴 © 장형임 기자 |
Kim Byeong-seok, director of the National Institute of Crop Science under the RDA (led by Administrator Lee Seung-don), visited the site of the ‘unmanned monitoring and trapping device’ pilot project in Dancheon-myeon, Uiseong-gun, North Gyeongsang Province, on the 8th to review how the technology is being applied and to hear the views of farmers and field officials.
The ‘unmanned monitoring and trapping device’ developed by the RDA is a smart surveillance system that lures pests using pheromones, an attractant substance, and then has artificial intelligence automatically analyze the captured footage to assess the pest situation remotely. This year, the pilot project is under way in seven cities and counties nationwide, including Taean in South Chungcheong Province; Iksan and Gimje in North Jeolla Province; Yeosu and Haenam in South Jeolla Province; and Yeongju and Uiseong in North Gyeongsang Province.
The Uiseong-gun pilot site that Director Kim visited covers 0.8 hectares (ha), where the vegetable-soybean variety ‘Seonpung’ is being grown. There, three devices — each trapping the beet armyworm, the tobacco cutworm and the bean bug — along with one environmental sensor are installed and operated as a single set.
 [코리안투데이] 농촌진흥청 무인 예찰 포획 장치 AI트랩 구축 현황 살펴 © 장형임 기자 |
For farms, the significance of the device lies in reducing labor. Until now, pest and disease surveys in soybean fields have relied on farmers inspecting the crops with their own eyes or checking manual traps. The AI trap converts this into an automated data-collection and analysis system, greatly cutting the labor and analysis time required for surveys while enabling rapid and accurate monitoring. In earlier verification tests, pest-identification accuracy was confirmed at above 90 percent.
The timing for rolling out the devices is also pressing. Soybeans are currently in the pod-filling stage, making monitoring and timely control essential to prevent damage to the seeds. In recent surveys of some paddy-soybean production complexes, the density of stink bugs, including the bean bug, has been rising, and once an outbreak is confirmed the pests must be controlled early with registered pesticides.
Director Kim Byeong-seok advised, ‘With soybeans, pests and diseases must be watched closely right up to the late growth stage. In particular, care is needed to control fungal diseases such as anthracnose, purple stain and phomopsis seed decay, which can affect seed quality and yield, as well as stink bugs such as the bean bug, the sloe bug and the brown-winged stink bug.’
 [코리안투데이] 농촌진흥청 무인 예찰 포획 장치 AI트랩 구축 현황 살펴 © 장형임 기자 |
He added, ‘In a situation where climate change makes cultivation conditions highly variable, the unmanned monitoring and trapping device allows us to quickly grasp pest outbreaks from a distance,’ stressing that ‘because more precise analysis becomes possible as regional data accumulate, we will expand the deployment of the devices going forward and improve both monitoring accuracy and survey efficiency.’
The RDA is expanding the technology so it can respond swiftly to a wider range of pest outbreaks by increasing the number of target pests, and it plans to further solidify the monitoring system within this year by linking it with the National Crop Pest Management System (NCPMS).
지역 홍보대사 신청 기자양성과정 신청 코리안투데이 지부장 신청 코리안투데이 인천강화코리안브랜드대상 신청 최고경영인대상 신청 소비자만족도대상 신청
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