Hoengseong-gun in Gangwon Province has developed the country's first customized fertilizer prescription kiosk, called "Biryo N-ON."
Farmers enter the lot number of their farmland into a kiosk installed at a local agricultural cooperative outlet, then select the crop they are growing and their preferred fertilizer type. The system instantly prints a tailored prescription on-site, calculating soil composition and the standard application rate.
The system has completed both a patent application and trademark registration in recognition of its originality and technical merit. A staff-assisted guidance service at cooperative outlets is also available for elderly farmers less comfortable with digital devices.
Biryo N-ON is expected to deliver a dual benefit: reducing costs for farming households while protecting the environment.
According to data from the Rural Development Administration, using fertilizer prescriptions cuts average fertilizer use by 31.2 percent compared with conventional practice. The system also shields farmers from a regulation that reduces basic direct payments by 10 percent when chemical fertilizer application standards are violated.
By curbing the runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus from excessive fertilizer use, the system is also expected to improve stream water quality and contribute to carbon neutrality in the agricultural sector.
The Hoengseong-gun Agricultural Technology Center, led by director Kwak Gi-ung, said Friday it plans to install the device at one cooperative outlet in the county by the end of July and begin a pilot operation.
Soil testing services at agricultural technology centers nationwide have long required farmers to visit a center in person or wait for results by mail — a process that rarely aligned with the actual timing of fertilizer purchases. That mismatch perpetuated a cycle in which farmers continued to buy and apply fertilizer in excess, following established habits.
In response, the county's agricultural technology center listened closely to farmers' requests to "prescribe fertilizers that are actually carried at the outlet" and to complaints from cooperative sales staff who said it was difficult to check soil testing prescriptions on the spot for each customer. Drawing on that feedback, the center developed Biryo N-ON — a system that links the center's soil testing data, the Rural Development Administration's "Heuktoram" soil database and the cooperative's sales system in real time.
Hoengseong-gun has already accumulated soil data for 6,123 plots — equivalent to 80 percent of applicants for the county's public interest direct payment program.
After rigorously validating the prescription algorithm through the pilot operation later this month, the county plans to gradually expand the range of applicable crops and develop a government innovation model that can be rolled out nationwide.
Park Seon-hui, head of the research and development division, said Biryo N-ON "is the fruit of communication and proactive administration that broke down barriers between institutions by actively embracing the difficulties faced by farmers in the field." She added that the county would "start with the pilot installation later this month, work to meaningfully reduce farm operating costs, and continue to upgrade sustainable, eco-friendly precision agriculture."
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