Self-driving tractors, tomato-picking robots, camera-mounted drones to survey fields and spot crop damage, and satellite data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to help farms keep track of climate and weather data.
At over a dozen booths beside the G20 farm ministers' meeting venue earlier this month in the Sea of Japan city of Niigata, agricultural organizations and technology firms touted products and services they see as necessary tools to ensure a prosperous future for agriculture.
"In today's Japan, the aging of farmers has become an issue, and the overall population of the country is decreasing. Collaboration between agriculture and nonagricultural sectors, such as satellite technology, IoT ("internet of things," internet connectivity into physical devices like tractors) and artificial intelligence has a key role to play in fostering agricultural innovation," said Susumu Hamamura, parliamentary vice minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.