A Study on the Status and Future Directions of IT Convergence Policy by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Korea

Research and technology has been transforming the agriculture to agribusiness which encompasses all operations with all the connections from faming per se, to manufacture & distribution of production supplies and farm commodities. Further, with the revolutionary development of information technology in the last two decades, we cannot talk about agribusiness process alone without considering the information technology embedded in the artifact, process, and structure. Despite the emergence of precision agriculture (PA) which is supported by IT based innovations which can not only improve efficiency in farming operations but also contribute to environmental sustainability, the adoption of IT among farmers and in agriculture industry are rather low than expected. Thus, Korean government has been seeking to converge IT into food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries to improve the competency of the agribusiness, and much progress has been made. This paper investigated the status quo of the current IT convergence with Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Korea, and further proposed future policy directions.