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Overcoming the Obstacles of Cross-border Cold Chains through Smart Technology - Opening a New Blue Ocean for Iceberg Lettuce

2023-04-13

Author：Ming-Yueh Chiang / Assistant Researcher,Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute,Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan
Author：Chu-Chung Chen / Associate Researcher,Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute,Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

Issues such as pest and disease monitoring as well as pesticide safety are extremely critical for exporting iceberg lettuce. During the initial stages of pests and diseases, the obscure signs and excessive variability of hazard characteristics prevent farmers from correctly identifying the types of pests or diseases. As a result, efforts to prevent them become poor even with excessive use of pesticides. This is especially true in recent years as contract farms must pass certification by international markets or clients in order to produce crops that meet the requirements of export countries and certain enterprises. The iPLANT system developed by the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute helps farmers manage iceberg lettuce fields through their smartphones and mobile devices. By simply uploading their work records and photos to the system, the geographic information system (GIS) can be utilized to compile data such as the history of soil, irrigation channels, and cultivation environment. This allows the system to analyze the region's environmental soil characteristics, establish real-time field data and traceable agricultural product data, and decrease the labor costs associating with producing paper data.

Figure 1. Comprehensive production data can be established by using iPLANT to integrate field operations and reported data while the automatic pest monitoring network creates risk distribution maps for various areas.Figure 1. Comprehensive production data can be established by using iPLANT to integrate field operations and reported data while the automatic pest monitoring network creates risk distribution maps for various areas.

The iPLANT system also integrates automated pest monitoring technologies to improve on traditional pest monitoring procedures and decrease the time gap between human patrols and information transmission. Pheromone traps are utilized to analyze the distribution of noctuidae pest populations and risk grading while farmers are immediately notified via messages on the LINE messaging app; this allows for the accurate control of pests, reduces unnecessary pesticide use, and decreases the risk of pesticide residue, thereby minimizing the rejection rate of exports. Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute and the agriculture industry jointly conducted multiple tests and revisions before successfully establishing a cold chain environmental control monitoring system in 2020. This created a comprehensive cold chain that extends shelf life to more than 1 month and successfully helped farmers enter Middle Eastern markets. By riding the wave of smart production, a new blue ocean was created for Taiwan's iceberg lettuce industry.

Figure 2. The utilization of cold chain technology helped iceberg lettuce vendors overcome transport bottlenecks and enter Middle Eastern markets.Figure 2. The utilization of cold chain technology helped iceberg lettuce vendors overcome transport bottlenecks and enter Middle Eastern markets.
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