Sector Report on ICT, Robotics and Biobased Economy in Japan (Jan 2018)
In Japan 2018, the Agricultural Office of the Netherlands Embassy in Tokyo has complied a sector report of 79 pages about ICT, robotics and biobased economy in Japan. The report also encompasses a list of companies entering into agricultural sector. The Summary and the table of contents are as below.
Summary
The government is shifting its policy to the slogan “strong, aggressive agriculture”. In its Declaration to Build the World’s Most Advanced IT State, the government announced that it will work to establish a new production system. There are initiatives to build a traceability system, but there are still many challenges that should be met to apply IT to agriculture.
In order to enhance the competitiveness of agriculture, make agriculture an attractive industry, and create an environment that makes farmers motivated to work harder and enables them to display their abilities to the full, it is important to innovate in agricultural technology such as saving and reducing labor, refining agricultural production, and using information technology.
“Smart agriculture” creates new value not only at production sites but also in the entire supply chain, and develops agriculture into a viable industry by applying AI, IoT, big data, and robotic technology. Examples are cloud services, sensor networks, environment control systems, guidance systems using GPS and Robot utilization.
The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) operates as a government institution and a hub for the agro-food sector. JA is a cooperative association, which was organized to protect and improve farming operation and the lives of farmers in the spirit of mutual help, and to build a better society.
IT application in the agriculture sector will lead to the development of new markets. Also, IT-supported production and cultivation management may become a powerful tool for the sector, thus it is an ideal target for the Netherlands to introduce its advanced technologies.
Agriculture is considered one of the most important new IT strategic measures aimed at by the country. Thus, it has been budgeted abundantly for implementation of agricultural policies and projects. As a result, companies with IT and IoT technology, general trading companies with food, and other heavy electric machineries companies and general contractors are entering into the agricultural sector.
Table of contents
1. Present condition of and challenges for agriculture in Japan 3
2. Use and application of big data and ICT in agriculture marketing 5
3. Smart agriculture 8
4. Agricultural sector: Sensors, GPS, robotic technology, and IoT technology 20
5. Farming sector food innovation (hub): the role of government and public institutions 54
6. Agriculture: SWOT analysis of the food industry innovation 59
7. Companies entering into the agricultural sector 61
Downloading the report
The full report is available here.