The Republic of Korea (ROK) has ensured its goal to facilitate the broader adoption of Korean smart farming technologies throughout the Middle East, with a particular emphasis on Qatar, a Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) official has said.

Director general KIM Jung Wook of the MAFRA’s Agri-food Innovation Policy Bureau made the statement after MAFRA and Qatar’s Ministry of Municipality held the second meeting of the ‘ROK-Qatar Smart Farm Cooperation Committee’ at the Rural Development Administration (RDA) in South Korea on Tuesday.

The ‘ROK-Qatar Smart Farm Cooperation Committee’ is a “director general-level” working committee, operated based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on smart farm cooperation amended and signed between the two countries in October 2023, a statement from MAFRA explained.

According to MAFRA, South Korea and Qatar have been expanding cooperation in the field of smart farming since the committee’s first meeting in Doha in February 2024.

“For instance, Qatar’s economic working group visited Korean smart-farm exporting companies to see smart farming technologies in 2024. Both sides also carried out the verification and validation of Korean machinery and equipment to see whether they can fulfil their intended purpose under Qatar’s desert climate,” the statement further explained.

During the second committee meeting, KIM discussed the following topics with the Qatar side of the committee, led by Dr Masoud Jarallah al-Marri, the director of the Food Security Department at the Ministry of Municipality: Qatar’s agricultural policies, including the National Food Security Strategy 2030; ways for investment cooperation to build a Korean model of smart farm innovation industrial complex in Qatar; and a plan to extend the period of verification and validation of Korean agricultural machinery and equipment to see whether they can withstand Qatar’s severely hot weather.

According to MAFRA, it “has been sparing no effort to expand a path for K-smart farms to enter overseas markets. To this end, the MAFRA has been building the Demo Smart Farm in the Middle East, and this year, it started the construction of the Demo Smart Farm in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

“In addition, the MAFRA designated trade offices dedicated to supporting smart farm export in three regions—the Middle East, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Oceania—and has been providing full support for consortiums of smart-farm companies to continue to win construction orders of smart farms from overseas buyers.”

KIM added: “Recently, the trade and cooperation between the Republic of Korea and the State of Qatar are gaining more momentum. We will continue to make efforts to ensure that Korean smart farm technologies can be more widely adopted in the Middle East, including Qatar. We strongly hope that cooperation between the two countries in terms of smart farming will advance to the next level.”