Mongolia Smart Agrifood Systems Technical Assistance

Project Summary:

Economic shocks related to the COVID-19 pandemic have severely affected the agriculture and food sector, poverty, and food security. National lockdowns and international demand and supply disruptions caused Mongolia’s GDP to contract by 5.4 percent. According to enterprise surveys, employment and incomes shrunk by 40 percent and 50 percent, respectively. The solutions to be identified under the grant aims to contribute to the economic recovery from COVID-19 and strengthening Mongolia’s future pandemic preparedness, linking with the twin pillars of the Korean digital new deal and green new deal. Specifically, the grant activity will support the implementation of digital agriculture activities and smart farm solutions. It will contribute to a prospective green and competitive agriculture project, which is expected to have a strong element of the development of regional clusters for green and competitive agriculture, promoting climate-smart and low carbon agriculture and livestock development models. The grant fund will support the development of the concept of green and competitive agriculture/livestock cluster models, combining the data-driven and climate-smart farm solutions with disruptive innovations including digital technologies for extension, agriculture services delivery, smart logistics, food safety, traceability systems, and marketing models.

List of Activities:

• Activity 1: Provide technical assistance for conceptualizing and piloting green and competitive agriculture (crop and livestock) clusters and examine the constraints for financing green agriculture technologies and propose alternative solutions based on good practice examples from Korea and other global experiences.
• Activity 2: Provide support the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry (MOFALI) and the General Administration for Veterinary Sciences (GAVS) to develop an e-Agriculture framework and investment proposals. 

Outcomes:

Output 1: 

• Number of smart farm solutions identified for pilots and scale-up
• A study on assessment of potential green and competitive agriculture/livestock clusters
• An assessment study of green agriculture finance in Mongolia

Output 2: 

• Data governance policy for smart agri-food systems developed
• Assessment report of existing digital databases and analytical tools for agri-food systems in Mongolia

Outcomes:

• Adoption of new technologies, innovation ideas, know-how by the private sector
• Private capital mobilization strategies for green growth agriculture/livestock
• Development of roadmap for smart agri-food governance plan by integrating existing IT platforms in MOFALI
• Increased public investment targeted towards smart agri-food governance systems in operation.

Collaboration with K-Partners and Others:

• National Information Society Agency (NIA)
• Korea Institute for Animal Product Quality Evaluation (KAPE)