• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.97-102
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• 2011

This study was performed to design and develop an ergonomic equipment for strawberry sorting and packing in agricultural working environments. Potential risk of work related musculo-skeletal disorders associated with farm workers performing strawberry sorting and packing was analyzed through interviews, field surveys, work measurement, and working posture evaluation. For the evaluation of working posture, we used REBA, OWAS, and RULA assessment methods to identify multi-factorial risk factors. Based on the result of comprehensive assessment, a new concept of multi-level rotating table for strawberry sorting and packing was proposed to modify awkward working postures and improve the effectiveness of the farm work. Finally, the characteristics and effectiveness of new equipment was discussed in terms of improvements in productivity, safety, and subjective ratings of farm workers. The results of analysis showed that working conditions improved significantly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.298-306
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• 1993

A portable torque and power measurement system for small farm equipment based on instrumented pulley was developed. The prototype pulley was machined from mild steel, with spokes serving as strain beams. Strain gages mounted to the spokes sense the bending strain due to the torque and convert this into millivolt output. Calibration results showed the torque-millivolt relationship was linear, while hysterisis and error were less than 1% fs. For power measurements, an additional tachmeter with dcvoltage output is necessary. With the tachometer , error in power measurement was +-1.03W or 0.2% fs. Field tests showed that for ease of installation, no machine alteration needed and safety, this system had advantage over other methods for small farm equipment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.1013-1025
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• 1993

Agriculture in Swaziland is the most important sector of the economy from the stand point of export earning, rural employment and dependency for family food. But, inspite of 65.5 percent of the household being busy in food production for family consumption in Swaziland, the import bill of food and live animals is rising from E119.7268 million in 1987/90 (An.St.Bul.1988) . A typical farm size, based on holding's growing crops, is only 1.93 ha which may prohibit owning a four wheel tractor for farm operations. The traditional hand tools are just not efficient and comfortable to operate in order to exploit full potential of the land. There are over 120.000 draught animals which have potential to be utilized in farming. The two wheel-tractor is another energy source which can be used for many farm-operations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Rural Planning Conference
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• 1998.03a
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• pp.15-16
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• 1998

It was studied Horticultural field by ARC/lNFO software, applicated on GIS- management information system, which dealt with graphic and attribute data together. This result obtained was summarized as follow : 1. It would be to output about position, attribute and photographic data of this horticultural farm through AML. 2. It would be easy to use with internal interface which is composed in basic function menu and application menu. 3. It would be good to plant Water melon and Tomato in this Horticultural farm. 4. The method which applicated overlay and analysis would be need to manage farming data in this horticultural farm and to develop a dynamic decision support system interfaced with GIS.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.89-110
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• 2020

This study aims to explore field cases of social farming programs for the youth's rural in-migration and to suggest the political and practical directions of the initiative of social farming in Korea. Two cases of social farm were selected and one operators and two participants of each farm were interviewed. The results are as follows. First, the participants had a firm priority that social farming is based on farming activities and places, and recognized it as the practice of embracing socially vulnerable groups. Second, the hosts were running their social farms based on their own understanding of social farming, which turns out to show different characteristics of the program. Third, the participants joined the program with the motivation of having an experience of rural life, exploration of career paths, and a need a need of community settlement, restructuring their experiences. Based on these results, the direction of social farming for youth's rural in-migration was suggested.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.68-83
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• 2010

Weedy rice (Oryza sativa L.) occurred sympatrically with other weeds and the rice crop in Malaysian rice granaries. We conducted field surveys in 2006-2008 seasons in 7 farm blocks of Selangor's North West Project, Malaysia to enlist the new biotypes of weedy rice (NBWR) and assess their spatio-temporal pattern of distribution based on quantitative and dispersion indices. No less than 16 accessions of NBWR were identified based on their special traits, viz. panicle type, pericarp colour, presence or absence of awn, seed type and degree of grain shattering. The NBWR accessions exhibited a combination of morphological traits from open panicle, grain with awns, red pericarp, short grain type, and degrees of grain shattering. Others mimic commercial rices with close panicle, awnless grains, white pericarp, long or short grain-type. Invariably, the NBWRs mimic and stand as tall as cultivated rice namely MR219, MR220, or MR235 and these NBWR accessions stand among equals morphologically vis-a-vis the commercial rice varieties. Most accessions displayed varying degrees of grain shattering in excess of 50%, except Acc9 and Acc12. The seasonal dynamics of on the prevalence of dominant NBWR accessions were also displaying significant differences among farm blocks. While Bagan Terap farm block, for example, did not record any measurable changes in the dominant NBWR accessions over seasons, the Sungai Leman farm block recorded measurable season-mediated changes in the dominant NBWR accessions. Sungai Leman started with NBWR Acc3, Acc4, Acc5, Acc7, Acc8, and Acc12 in season 1 of 2006/2007, but no measurable records of Acc3 and Acc5 were shown in season 2 of 2007. In season 3 of 2007/2008, only Acc8 and Acc12 prevailed in the farm block. In Sawah Sempadan farm block, season 3 of 2007/2008 showed much reduced prevalence of NBWRs leaving only Acc8 and Acc12. Most accessions registered clump or under-dispersed spatial distribution pattern based on quantitative indices: variance-to-mean ratio (VMR) and Lloyd's patchiness values. The dynamics on the extent of infestation and prevalence of dominant NBWR accessions registered both season- and farm-block mediated differences. Most accessions showed VMR >1 thus indicative of having a clump or clustered spatial distribution, as exemplified by Acc3, Acc4, Acc7, Acc8 and Acc12 in all farm blocks throughout three seasons. Some accessions have either random or uniform distribution in a few farm blocks. The Acc8 has the highest population counts based on important value index, followed by Acc12, and both were the most dominant accession while Sawah Sempadan was the worst farm block infested by NBWR compared to other farm blocks. These results were discussed in relation with the current agronomic and weed management practices, water availability and extension services in the granary.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2024

Accurate field crop classification is essential for various agricultural applications, yet existing methods face challenges due to diverse crop types and complex field conditions. This study aimed to address these issues by combining support vector machine (SVM) models with multi-seasonal unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images, texture information extracted from Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM), and RGB spectral data. Twelve high-resolution UAV image captures spanned March-October 2021, while field surveys on three dates provided ground truth data. We focused on data from August (-A), September (-S), and October (-O) images and trained four support vector classifier (SVC) models (SVC-A, SVC-S, SVC-O, SVC-AS) using visual bands and eight GLCM features. Farm maps provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs proved efficient for open-field crop identification and served as a reference for accuracy comparison. Our analysis showcased the significant impact of hyperparameter tuning (C and gamma) on SVM model performance, requiring careful optimization for each scenario. Importantly, we identified models exhibiting distinct high-accuracy zones, with SVC-O trained on October data achieving the highest overall and individual crop classification accuracy. This success likely stems from its ability to capture distinct texture information from mature crops.Incorporating GLCM features proved highly effective for all models,significantly boosting classification accuracy.Among these features, homogeneity, entropy, and correlation consistently demonstrated the most impactful contribution. However, balancing accuracy with computational efficiency and feature selection remains crucial for practical application. Performance analysis revealed that SVC-O achieved exceptional results in overall and individual crop classification, while soybeans and rice were consistently classified well by all models. Challenges were encountered with cabbage due to its early growth stage and low field cover density. The study demonstrates the potential of utilizing farm maps and GLCM features in conjunction with SVM models for accurate field crop classification. Careful parameter tuning and model selection based on specific scenarios are key for optimizing performance in real-world applications.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.13 no.3 s.20
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• pp.135-139
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• 1974

A survey on rodent damage to ripening rice was conducted in Sep.-Oct. in 1973 in order to indentify the habitat type which has the greatest influence on rodent populations and damage problems. Total 109 paddies were examined in three geographical regions in central part of Korea including Kangwon and Kyoungki Provinces, which represents mountainous, coastal and rice plain lands. Sample paddies were selected according to the neighboring or surrounding habitats as farm villages, upland-crop fields, grassy river banks, forests and rice plains. Snap trapping was also conducted in each of habitats. In April, 1974, field trips were taken to representative parts of Korea visiting farmers and rural guidance officers involving more than 100 people for the information of existing local problems. The general damage of rice was considerably low in 1973 averaging $63\%$ in early ripening varieties and $0.26\%$ in standard varieties, white the average lost in 1971 was $14.2\%$ in early ripening varieties and $2.7\%$ in standard varieties. But the most of severe damages was occurred within 50 meters (practically none beyond 100m) of farm villages, caused mainly by Norway rat (Rattus rottfus Caraco) and striped field mouse (Apodemus agrarius). The examples of existing local problems confirmed that the rodent damage to field crops is closely associated with rodent populations that have survived the winter in and around farm houses and buildings.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.149-155
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• 2012

Rice paddy fields have been recognized as an alternative habitat for avian wetland foragers, and fish-rice farms have become a new tool in improving the abundance of aquatic animals. However, the use of the habitats by avian foragers, particularly by oriental storks ($Ciconia$ $boyciana$), was not well understood. In the present study, we investigated how a fish-rice farm influenced the abundance of aquatic animals and documented the foraging behavior of the two captive bred oriental storks in a closed semi-natural paddy field. Our results showed that the fish refuge pond (water depth 40 cm) had a higher abundance of fish whereas the areas planted with rice (water depth 20 cm) had more tadpoles and some aquatic insects. The two captive bred oriental storks captured mostly fish and aquatic insects in the rice-planted area and mostly fish in the fish refuge pond. The two oriental storks had higher foraging success and spent more time for foraging in the rice-planted area than in the fish refuge pond. This result suggests that the oriental storks might prefer foraging in the area with fish, aquatic insects, and amphibians under a greater success rate presumably due to shallow water depth in the paddy fields with a fish-rice farm.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.551-557
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• 2014

This paper presents a robust lateral controller for autonomous guidance of a farm tractor in field operations. Although mechanical steering actuators have recently been used for passenger vehicles, the steering actuator of the farm tractor is based on a hydraulic system, resulting in limited bandwidth and a larger time delay. Based on a kinematic tractor model with steering actuator dynamics, a nonlinear control technique called dynamic surface control is applied to design a robust lateral controller that compensates for uncertainty owing to steering actuator and road geometry. Finally, tracking performance and robustness of the proposed controller are validated via commercial tractor simulations, with respect to the time delay of the steering actuator and road geometry (e.g., up and down hills), on a given field with a constant friction coefficient.