Lim Ju-wan, who has been raising flowers for more than 30 years, normally starts the day by taking out his smartphone to check his greenhouse instead of going outside to his land like traditional farmers.
“I do not need to physically go to the greenhouses by myself as I can see what’s going on there through my smartphone,” Lim said, marveling at how things have changed for the better compared to the past, when he really had no choice other than to actually deal with routine, time-consuming chores.
Lim is the representative of a floriculture cooperative of nine farms based in Goyang, north of Seoul, that raises roses at smart greenhouses covering a combined 44,000 square meters of land.
Annually, the cooperative produces 130 tons of roses, with around 30 percent of the produce being shipped to Japan.
The union is one of South Korea’s pioneers in adopting smart farming, the concept of utilizing cutting-edge technologies to allow farmers to control all aspects of raising crops automatically and through remote control methods.
“I travel abroad often to find out the latest trends in the flower industry. But I do not have to worry about leaving my flowers unattended as long as I have an Internet connection,” Lim said.