You'll have a hard time finding any land in the world with more attention to the healthiness, freshness and quality of food than Japan. There's a clear place on the plate for veggies. How this effects the industry, became clear last week on the GPEC exhibition in Japan, Xander van der Zande with DanDutch tells.
"The biannual trade show fully named Greenhouse Horticulture & Plant Factory Exhibition Conference has been grown further this year and welcomed over 40,000 visitors. Both the exhibition as horticulture in Japan are growing in terms of quality as well", he confirms. When talking about horticulture in Japan it includes traditional greenhouses and plant factories. "Industrialization and automation are top of mind since it's a way to minimize the need for work, being both tough and expensive. Sometimes they get ahead of themselves in this and forget you can't just robotize a plant."
Taking care of the crop and harvesting remain a manual job for the time being. The plant and the fruits are unique in shape, never uniform and this is a challenge. "The Japanese are developing harvest robots for tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. Once the robots work independent, faster and more accurate than humans, there's a chance for success - but I expect this to last another decade."
Maybe a more realistic improvement for nowadays can be found with Takahiko Agro-Business, who’s developing their paprika nursery with intensive crop support, climate control and energy solutions.
Cultivating crops with a lower need of labour, like various varieties of lettuce and herbs, can be automized much more easier. The opportunities in these markets are to be found at the GPEC, where many companies showed there often multi-layered growth systems.
"The climate is harsh in Japan and the rules for food safety are strict, thus offering opportunities for indoor cultivation methods. These are often the fixed setups. The mobile growing systems might offer opportunities here as well, since the need for labor can be reduced to a minimum while space is utilized optimally. Many European companies are offering solutions to this."
A number of collaborating Japanese and Dutch companies were found at the exhibition:
Tomita Technologies with VB Group & Priva.
Daisen with KUBO.
Rijk Zwaan, Enza Zaden, Certhon & Hollandweb were to be found in the Dutch pavilion. Philips participated in the GPEC with its own Japanese entity.
Operating together and developing together with Japanese growers is a spear point for companies GreenSquare International & pepper growers Gebroeders E&W Valstar, visiting the exhibition.
Seiwa Co. with Delphy & ReduSystems.
The agricultural council of the Dutch embassy plays a central and connecting role. They organized the Dutch pavilion and hosted a beautiful reception with which the connection and collaboration between Dutch and Japanese companies were stimulated.
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Xander van der Zande