The dwindling birthrate, combined with the aging population in Japan, has presented a serious issue for Japanese agriculture—namely, a decline in the amount of agricultural workers in the country. The number of key agricultural workers in private farming enterprises decreased by 394,000 (22.4 percent) from 2015 to 2020, from about 1.76 million to 1.36 million.
The 2020 Census of Agriculture and Forestry in Japan, published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, noted that, of these key agricultural workers, 69.6 percent were 65 years old or older—demonstrating a 4.7 percent increase in the average age of laborers over five years, with fewer young workers overall. It's clear that if this trend continues, there will be a sharp decline in Japan's food production capacity and in the international competitiveness of Japanese agricultural exports.
As such, establishing efficient and highly productive agricultural systems and reducing labor needs for agricultural work are of the utmost importance in Japan. Municipalities, organizations, and companies across the country are working on innovative smart agriculture initiatives to achieve this outcome. One is a project that was carried out by the NTT AgriTechnology Corporation, a Japanese company working to implement the advanced information and communications technologies (ICT) of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation in the field of agriculture.
Farming Newbies Grow High-Quality Tomatoes Through Remote Instruction
NTT AgriTechnology, the Tokyo Development Foundation for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation (NTT East) established this three-year project—referred to formally as a collaboration agreement for the implementation of cutting-edge agriculture using private 5G—in 2020. Its aim is to create a Tokyo-based model that could be used to bolster the future of Japanese agriculture. Private 5G provides more stable communication than public 5G and can better respond to immediate problems with crops that need to be addressed on a regular basis.
The project involved setting up greenhouses equipped with private 5G in Chofu City, in Tokyo prefecture, and using them to grow tomatoes. Ultrahigh-resolution cameras, smart glasses, and other technologies were also utilized. The environments in the greenhouses were managed fully automatically, with sensors that measured factors like the temperature and indoor CO2 concentration in order to optimize the photosynthesis of the crops.
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