Technical developments in food don't always come from horticulture and cool machines don't just operate in the greenhouse. In Japan for example a rice planter has been developed in Ogata-Mura, Akita. The auto steer combined with the possibility to work within relatively deep water level (whereas conventional rice planters had to drain muddy water temporarily from the paddy field) makes the technique worth watching.
RTK-GNSS of TOPCON provided precise position data. The efficient eight-row rice planter was made by Kubota. Akita Prefectural University, NARO and Akita Prefecture attended the research project with enormous cooperation of farmers in Ogata-mura.