▲ Yongjin Machinery / CEO Mungoo Jeong

Farming in the past required a great number of farmers in the field. Farming today requires a number of machines. The reason contemporary farmers prefer machines is because they are more efficient and productive than manual labor. 

Yongjin Machinery is a company that has been specialized in agricultural machines for the last 30 years. The efficiency of the machines has been welcome and praised by farmers working in the field to harvest potato, sweet potato, cabbage, chill pepper, carrot, garlic, radish and many more. The company obtained a patent for seeding machine in 2012 and registered potato seeding patent in China. 

CEO Mungoo Jeong was born to farmer parents and grew his interest in agricultural machines from out of his wish to remove physical burden off his parents. Naturally, he majored in engineering at university and worked for a machinery company for 10 years and travelled the agriculturally strong countries in the world during which he learned new skills and brewed new ideas. He remembers:

“I won a silver prize in the category of agricultural machine development in a competition and it encouraged me a lot and made me draw a bigger picture to run my own company. Agricultural machines for me are like hands and legs of farmers. All machines made at Yongjin Machinery have this spirit.”

In recognition of its achievement and contribution, Yongjin Machinery received the 2019 Topnotch Tech Development Industry alongside shoulder to shoulder with two major companies last June. A total of 60 companies won the award this year and it is meaningful that Yonjin Machinery is the sole small size company. 

As a result, Im is to receive $198,000 subsidy for 2 years and 9 months from the government. And the money is used to develop a multifunctional potato harvesting machine in cooperation with Kangwon National University professors Gyeongju Kang and Suksu Jo. When succeeded, the machine is expected to save labor cost, increase productivity and income. 

The multifunctional potato harvesting machine is also expected to encourage domestic agricultural machine makers to compete with the dominating overseas companies such as Kubota Japan, John Deere US, CNH Netherlands and AGCO US. The good news is that the project is in its 80 to 90% completion. Meanwhile, Jeong is working on developing a green onion harvesting machine which will possibly be released in the market early December this year. 

“My goal next year is to develop a strawberry selector. I’m determined to increase more lines so that farmers can work easier and more efficient. I always think of my farmer parents whenever I design and make agricultural machines and this I will carry in my heart till the end.”