Author：Chou, Kuo-Lung,Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan.
1.The current problems of the industry
Edamame is a competitive export-oriented industry. In 2021, the cultivation areas were about 9,000 hectares, the annual outputs were about 76,500 metric tons, and the contracted areas were 6,419 hectares. The annual sales volumes of the products were 35,393 metric tons, and the output values were US$78.79 million. It is mainly sold to Japan, accounting for 79.9%. , and the rest are sold to 29 countries including the United States and Canada. Among them, the export value of frozen edamame products exported to Japan accounted for 47.5% of the Japanese market. The export dollars of Taiwanese edamame products were substantially exceeded 2.52 and 1.63 times more than the frozen products of China and Thailand, respectively. It has been the champion in the Japanese market for 14 consecutive years, and the value is 30.6% higher than Chinese products. The "Taiwan Green Gold" industry has also greatly enhanced the competitiveness of Taiwanese edamame products in the Japanese market. However, in recent years, edamame products from Thailand and China have competed at low prices, and the improvement of mechanized production technology has increased their competitiveness, which seriously threatens Taiwan. Therefore, how to improve the smart technology of Taiwan's edamame industry is an important topic at present.
2. Solution
(1) Establish the mechanized precision production technology of edamame export professional zone
Through the Edamame Industry Intelligent Agriculture Alliance (Figure 1), the establishment 5 field technologies of 2018 to 2010, with smart GPS tractor with the trailing double-row disc, automatic stone picking machine, laser leveling machine, GPS pole sprayer and GPS image Monitor harvester are promoted to professional farmers and processing industry applications. Therefore, the "Mechanized Precision Production Technology of Edamame Farm (Figure 2)" was established, which can greatly save manpower by 30%, reduce production costs by 50%, increase the operating efficiency by more than 3 times, and reduce the repeated application of pesticides by 13.3%, achieving precision farming in the edamame export professional fields. The method is to use the smart tractor attached to the trailing double-row disc for soil preparation → the stone picking machine to automatically pick up stones → the laser leveling machine for horizontal preparation → the swivel plow for soil preparation → the vacuum seeder for sowing →the cultivator weeding and fertilizing machine → the GPS pole sprayer → the GPS image monitor harvester.
Figure 1. Members of the “Edamame Industry Smart Agriculture Alliance” and their relationship in the industry
Figure 2. mechanized precision production Technology of edamame farm.(2) Establish smart precision management technology for edamame export professional zone
Guiding two demonstration farms to introduce 10 image monitoring systems with a total investment of NT$700,000 in the edamame export professional fields. They can monitor the growth of edamame plants and the damage of pests-diseases in the field throughout the day, and control the farmland in real time. micro-meteorological data, real-time map and data are transmitted to the “Weather Inspector Agricultural Intelligence Cloud System” (Figure 3) for pest image identification and data analysis, which can improve the smart precision management of the edamame export professional fields.
Figure 3. Guiding two demonstration farms to introduce 10 image monitoring systems with a total investment of NT$700,000 in the edamame export professional fields.3. After the promotion of the plan, it will bring changes and benefits to the industry
(1) Through the Edamame Industry Intelligent Agriculture Alliance (Figure 1), the establishment 5 field technologies of 2018 to 2010, with smart GPS tractor with the trailing double-row disc, automatic stone picking machine, laser leveling machine, GPS pole sprayer and GPS image Monitor harvester are promoted to professional farmers and processing industry applications. Therefore, the "Edamame Farm Mechanized Precision Production Technology" were established, which can greatly save manpower by 30%, reduce production costs by 50%, increase the operating efficiency by more than 3 times, and reduce the repeated application of pesticides by 13.3%, and improve the soil quality, achieve precision farming in export professional fields, and improve the yield and quality of edamame.
(2) The operation of the “Edamame Industry Intelligent Agriculture Alliance” takes the bean group of the Frozen Vegetable and Fruit Association as the core, and gathers production (processing industry, professional farmers), official (Agricultural and Food Agency and International Office of COA), research and development (KDARES and scholars) and other units. Monthly meetings are held to discuss industrial issues and technical exchanges, jointly solve the production and sales of edamame, and promote mechanization/intelligence to reduce production costs, to produce high-quality edamame products, and promote it on "Taiwan Edamame Alliance" of Facebook.
