South Korea said Tuesday it plans to lift a set of regulations in the agricultural sector to harness more state-of-the-art technologies and foster new growth engines for the industry.

Under the blueprint, South Korea will establish new smart farming clusters for a wider scope of areas covering livestock, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The country previously focused on adopting the solution for greenhouses.

The concept of smart farming centers on the application of cutting-edge technologies, such as big data, to provide optimized cultivating environments for various crops that can lead to an improvement in production quality and more efficient management of resources.

The country plans to build three smart farming clusters for the livestock industry in October this year.

South Korea will also allow local companies to move into the special industrial zone for foodstuff businesses based in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, which were previously opened to only foreign firms.

The country will seek to use drones and self-driving automobiles in the agricultural industry as well.

The move to lower barriers in the agricultural segment is in line with the government's efforts to overcome economic jitters from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We plan to spare no efforts to lend a hand to the post-pandemic economic recovery by easing regulations in the agricultural industry," the ministry said in a statement.

Outbound shipments of the country's agricultural products, meanwhile, came to $9 billion in 2020, up 4.5 percent on-year. (Yonhap)