GanongBio strives to produce safe, tasty eggs
Company’s smart farm uses data-based automated system
“We know the best levels of temperature, humidity, light and quality of air for our chickens and we maintain those conditions consistently. ”
A smart farm for chicken eggs which is run by a big data-based automation system not only reduces labor and human error but also produces possibly the best-tasting eggs in the world, according to the head of the domestic egg farm, Wednesday.
Yoo Jai-gug, who heads GanongBio and its manufacturing plant in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, said in an interview with The Korea Times that egg quality is defined by the laying hen’s health condition, how thoroughly fresh eggs are checked for possible infection and kept safe on conveyor belts until they are packed and supplied through cold chains. The best way to maximize such comprehensive procedures, according to the company president who majored in economics, was a cutting-edge smart farm operated by artificial intelligence (AI).
GanongBio’s system oversees Ganong Farmillion Valley, which consists of six houses for chickens laying eggs and two rearing houses for chicks. With each house holding 200,000 chickens, the total eggs produced in the valley numbers nearly 1 million each day. The best-tasting eggs, according to Yoo, are the result of the production chain that aims for complete “zero” — zero infection risk, zero disease, zero human contact, zero errors and zero days of shipment delay.
“We know the best levels of temperature, humidity, light and quality of air for our chickens and we maintain those conditions consistently,” Yoo said. “If even a single factor veers off course, chickens notice it and their health is at risk. If the temperature drops by one degree Celsius, they eat one gram more than before of their feed, disrupting their dietary balance. Depending on the amount of light, chickens recognize day and night and their libido is affected.”
There are other chicken farms in the country which promote animal welfare and raise the birds by not keeping them inside cages. They roam freely, lay eggs and drop excrement anywhere they want, and the majority of the public supports such methods. But Yoo said chicken farms cannot keep their environment completely clean for the birds and it can affect the quality of the eggs.
“Eighty percent of our eggs are graded A+,” Yoo said, referring to the country’s egg-grading system that categorizes between A+, A and B. “Twenty percent are from aged chickens that we replace with younger ones every 10 weeks. We keep the old chickens in a separate house.”
Yoo says GanongBio is the country’s only smart farm that uses big data to maintain its AI-based automation. With the system regularly inputting how much feed and water chickens consume, how much they weigh, how many eggs they lay and how much each egg weighs, the farm keeps in check the relationship between chickens’ living conditions and productivity. Yoo invested in launching the system, AMACS by Germany’s Big Dutchman, in 2014 when his farm started running based on AI — a huge improvement from 1975 when Yoo’s father built the farm in the same spot where everything was done by hand.
At the core of the plant is quarantining, where most of the company’s “zero” policies apply. Yoo doesn’t allow the plant’s protective shield against viruses to be compromised. To prevent that, he believes that potential virus carriers can be narrowed down to humans and trucks carrying either feed, old chickens or bird excrement. He believes that 80 percent to 90 percent of contamination derives from humans.
The plant runs a strict set of regulations that controls human movement. Workers are required to disrobe, take a shower and change their entire outfits before entering each of the houses for chickens laying eggs. The same procedure is required even when moving from one house to another. Throughout the procedure when eggs are laid, collected, examined and packaged, no human contact with the eggs is involved. This practice is behind how the company has so far seen not a single case of infection among its chickens.
“I believe not even Samsung forces its employees to take off their underwear to keep its clean rooms virusfree,” Yoo said.
Spreading smart farms
Yoo, as much as believing in his farm’s technological advancement that is ahead of others, wishes there were more smart farms across the country so that more livestock farmers could benefit from the system’s efficiency-oriented operation. Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung visited the plant last month and claimed the company should be a model for the country’s livestock industry.
But, according to Yoo, there is a major hurdle. The country’s regulations on livestock operation remain inconsistent across different regions. He said they should be formalized and standardized.
One of the regulations he pointed out should be revised is how some regional authorities, when approving a license for a new livestock farm within their jurisdiction, require local residents’ consent even when the site is legally feasible for the purpose. He said it prompts some local residents to demand an illegal bribe from the license seeker.
“Local residents don’t agree to seeing a new livestock farm open nearby mostly because of manure odors or air pollution worries. But there already exist means to control those problems,” Yoo said. “The government should introduce a conditional license so that they first issue the license but later can revoke it when the newly licensed farm creates such problems.”