A team named 'Ilyongjik Saessak' (Team Leader Seok Seung-won, 4th-year), composed of students from Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Department of Smart Farm, won the Grand Prize at the recently held 'Smart Agriculture AI Competition' hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and received a prize of 30 million won.

Held over six months from September last year to February this year, and with total prize money of around 100 million won, the competition drew 104 teams and 510 students nationwide. The event consisted of preliminaries and finals. The first preliminary round was an AI hackathon in which participants developed optimal tomato growth prediction models through machine learning and evaluated their accuracy. The second preliminary round was a presentation evaluation on the theme 'AI Cultivation Environment Algorithm Development Plan and Cultivation Strategy.'

Among the top 12 teams from the first preliminary round, the final three teams advanced to the finals. In the finals, tomatoes were cultivated remotely using a controlled-environment glass greenhouse at the Green Bio Science & Technology Research Institute, Seoul National University, located in Pyeongchang.

Each finalist team developed its own AI cultivation-environment algorithm to create the environment best suited for tomato cultivation while considering energy usage. From October last year to February this year, four months of demonstration cultivation were conducted. Final rankings were determined by comprehensively evaluating yield, energy consumption, and the performance of the developed AI models.

In this competition, the JBNU team—comprising undergraduates from the Department of Smart Farm and startup farmers from Team Ppameo (Gimje Smart Farm Innovation Valley)—developed an excellent AI cultivation-environment algorithm and won the Grand Prize with outstanding results in the demonstration cultivation.

Kim Tae-gon, Head of the JBNU Department of Smart Farm, said, “In a competition that included participation from many government-funded specialized institutions as well as universities, the results achieved through cooperation between the first cohort of the Department of Smart Farm students and local startup farmers stood out. This is evaluated as a successful model demonstrating the capabilities of JBNU, the first university nationwide to establish a Department of Smart Farm, and of Jeollabuk-do Special Self-Governing Province, the agricultural and life-sciences hub.”

Seok Seung-won, the team leader, said, “There were many difficulties and critical moments during preparation for the competition, but thanks to the passionate guidance and support of our department professors, we were able to achieve this excellent result. I will continue to work hard to grow into a talent who will lead the smart farm field based on this achievement.”

The 'Ilyongjik Saessak' team consists of nine members: six JBNU Department of Smart Farm students and three representatives of startup farmers based in the Smart Farm Innovation Valley. The Department of Smart Farm students are Seok Seung-won (4th-year), Jeong Jae-young (4th-year), Jeon Hye-jin (4th-year), Choi Su-young (4th-year), Park Min-gyu (4th-year), and Kim Seong-jun (4th-year, Department of Bioenvironmental Chemistry; double major in the Department of Smart Farm). The members of Team Ppameo are representatives Kim Ki-hyun, Go Taek-gyun, and Lim Seo-won.