Journal of Taiwan Agricultural Research

Author:Chun-Tang Lu, Tsang-Sen Liu, Chih-Kai Yang, and Jyh-Rong Tsay*

Abstract:

    The traceability system of agro-product is considered an approach that may lead to create product differentiation in the market, elevate product competitiveness, and bring better production and consumption environment for agro-products in Taiwan. Through the integration of self-monitoring by agro-product operators, verification of product sources by distributors, feedback from consumers and government oversight with regulation, the local agricultural sector is able to promote the effectiveness of Taiwan’s agro-product traceability system and help to differentiate these products in the market. “Smart Agriculture (SA)”, a 6-year research program initiated by the Council of Agriculture in 2017, based on sensor/sensing technology, intelligent robot, internet of things (IoT) and big data analytics, is expected to build local smart production, marketing and digital service systems to efficiently enhance the whole agricultural productivity and capacity. Furthermore, it is anticipated to build an active, all-purpose agricultural consumption/service platform to earn customer’s trust for food safety by completing the program. In the SA program, a common information platform which uses the Open Application Programming Interface (Open API) to connect with a range of existing application databases has been established. According to the policy of the food safety, all primary and secondary schools need to use traceable agricultural and aquaculture products tagged with the information of the “Three Labels and One QR Code (3L1Q)”. The Campus Food Ingredients Registration Platform of the Ministry of Education can get food safety information daily from the common information platform by Open API mechanism to ensure safety of campus lunch. The agriculture management system “i-PLANT” applies technologies in terms of geographic information system (GIS), IoT and aerial photography, as well as cumulative agricultural experience and the information recorded via the mobile application (APP) of crop production. That is, “i-PLANT” combines environmental layer nesting with data services for field production risk management and decision analysis. It promotes a new type of “agriculture service industry”, which allows farmers to cultivate and record field data more easily and also enables consumers to eat with confidence for food safety. Moreover, the relationship between agricultural operations and food can be further strengthened by the system, connecting the upstream agricultural production and middle/lower reached logistics sales to smart agri-food supply chains.

Key words:Smart Agriculture, Common information platform, Big data, Agriculture management system, i-PLANT

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