The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), where CEO Hee-kyung Ryoo worked after her graduation as a landscape architecture major, is an international intergovernmental organization to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable growth. CEO Ryoo worked here to recruit experts to resolve various environmental issues, offer advice on methods for a country to achieve sustainable growth, and develop policies.
Afterwards, she founded a non-governmental organization (NGO) and launched the ‘Umbrella Species Project’ to protect tigers in China with funding from the United Kingdom. This activity was based on the idea that protecting tigers, which are at the top of the food chain, would lead to a balanced preservation of the entire ecosystem. However, the progression of the project led to heightened conflict with farmers, who lived in tiger reserves. The farmers did not accept the advice that environment-friendly farming methods should be applied to protect tigers. CEO Ryoo remarked that she wound up studying environmentally friendly agriculture in the process of developing arguments persuade them.

Eyes became open to smart farms that respond to climate change

“I realized that there were many problems that needed to be resolved in agriculture related to climate change, which motivated me to become interested in smart farms. Proper utilization of smart farms can contribute to adapting to climate change, because this technology enables users to effectively use and recycle water and energy required for farming. Moreover, I studied agriculture because a combination of this technology with farmers’ know-how produces meaningful results. When I started running a smart farm, I found that, along with many tricky aspects, the technical barriers were high. Because I realized that these difficulties need to be solved with artificial intelligence (AI), I initiated a startup with another alumnus, Woo-ram Lee.”
CEO Lee, who is also a professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Gyeonggi University of Science and Technology, majored in electrical and computer engineering and has been devoted to AI development since completion of her doctorate degree. The agricultural field appeared to her as a “gold mine” with accumulated unstructured data. This is why she joined the startup without hesitation after receiving a call from CEO Ryoo: “Her proposal attracted my interest in that the AI technology incorporated into smart farms could benefit many people. Coincidentally, CEO Ryoo contacted me to encourage me to join the business.”

There is no such thing that “has always been like that!”

CEO Ryoo, prior to full devotion to the operation of Croft, received systematic farmer training. First, she participated in a smart farm operation training program run by the government, recruiting approximately 200 people each year. However, she needed to inquire why most of people fail to operate a smart farm even after receiving such training.
“I did not like the atmosphere where the failure of smart farms was taken for granted, including comments that ‘People are not good at everything the first time they try,’ and ‘Farming is a not a sector where people can make profit from the beginning.’ The phrase I hate the most is ‘It has always been like that.’ I thought that I should not urge farmers to take risks. So, I sought a way to enable them to make profit the moment they start a business. This desire led me to launching this business.”
The ChatGPT-type AI system developed by Croft provides assistance in crop cultivation. While CEO Ryoo was strenuously growing and supplying leafy vegetables for salads, CEO Lee was tirelessly benchmarking the AI agricultural technology from the Netherlands, a “leader in agriculture. “Conceiving a business in 2021, I discussed with CEO Ryoo a test cultivation of lettuce, while we participated in an AI automation challenge related to lettuce, coincidentally held in the Netherlands. We unexpectedly won first place at this competition requiring farming using AI technology alone. Afterwards, active exchanges with the Netherlands, an agricultural powerhouse, sparked my confidence that the future of smart farms in South Korea would be rosy.”
The rental smart farm currently in operation has a cultivation area of approximately 1,200 pyeong (3,967 m2). it harvests approximately 15 tons once a week, and monthly profit amounts to approximately 10 million won. Although it may be too early to call this business as “regular operation,” this smart farm is running relatively smoothly. Croft's AI system is still a semi-automated facility that requires human hands to handle harvesting under the automated control of the environment at the smart farm alone. Under these circumstances, the lives of these two CEOs, sharing the vision of “food security” and “food safety” and the goal of creating customized AI for each region that is applicable in the era of climate crisis, may become even more hectic.

To produce agricultural products safe for both humans and Earth

As food issues have recently been emerging due to the climate crisis, the topic of “coexistence of Earth and humans” is becoming a guiding star for the business direction of these two CEOs. “Although it has not been long since I started farming, there is something that I realized: ‘Agriculture is not a primary industry!’ The more engaged I become in agriculture, the more confident I am that it is an industry which developed countries can operate more effectively. We are ardent in operating smart farms in the belief that if the infrastructure is appropriately prepared and maintained, South Korea will be able to run smart farms as efficiently as the Netherlands. I intend to prevent food production from being threatened by radical climate change and to supply agricultural products that are safe for both humans and Earth.”